


Forgotten Familiarity

by geicogecko



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Basically the losers and their spouses are genderswapped but no one else is, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, F/M, Genderswap, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, I'm just a simple lesbian who wants some cute lesbian content, Internalized Homophobia, It gets fluffy I promise, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Sexism, Suicide Attempt, lesbian reddie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:34:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 86,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22594105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geicogecko/pseuds/geicogecko
Summary: Edith "Eddie" Kaspbrack is home sick (she isn't really sick but her fiance had taken one look at her that morning and claimed she looked "too pale" before calling her out from work himself) when she stumbles across a raunchy, pretty comedian who curses too much and feels too familiar for a total stranger.So she buys tickets to her next show.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Myra Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Comments: 190
Kudos: 241





	1. Sick Day

Myran wasn’t home and Eddie had an uncomfortably suppressed anger stewing in her stomach as she tried to lie down and rest like her fiance had suggested she do after calling her out of work (he said she looked pale, she felt fine and had a sneaking suspicion he was trying to get her fired, he always hinted that work was too stressful for someone so delicate).

But she was bored and fidgety, her laptop on the desk was calling to her. Maybe a little spitefully she flopped back with the computer resting on her stomach (“The heat from the computer will affect your eggs Edith-Bear!”) and pulled up FaceBook, it wasn’t what she wanted to be doing but it was something, and something was better than the Myran-Prescribed bed rest she had been on since yesterday afternoon.

**This woman is disgusting! Go home and look pretty there sweetheart, leave being funny to real comedians haha!**

Eddie felt her skin crawl, if she didn’t know that Myran checked her social media she would have unfriended his ‘college buddies’ years ago. The way they spoke about women made Eddie want to punch something but when she had brought it up to Myran he had placated her with a “It's just a joke honey!” and that had been that.

But Myran wasn’t here and the engagement ring on her finger felt heavy and she was feeling petty. So she clicked on the video.

_~“Hey hey hey everybody! I’m Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier and you won’t fucking BELEIVE what my boyfriend did this time!”~_

It wasn’t all that funny, if Eddie was being honest. The woman had excellent timing and her expressive storytelling was hilarious, but the jokes themselves were bottom of the barrel and basic and Eddie found herself muttering “Come on Trashmouth you can do better than this shit” before catching herself on the odd statement. She’d never even met this woman, but somehow she knew that her claim wasn’t wrong. Something about Richie (Rachel, According to her Wikipedia) Tozier captivated her, it was as if some switch in her mind had been flipped and she couldn’t understand it. She felt like she knew her but there was no way Eddie had ever watched stuff this raunchy before, her mother and Myran never would allow it.

Richie Tozier was pretty, at least the shitty FaceBook post got that right, but something about her particular brand of pretty felt wrong to Eddie. Too made up, hair straight (it should be curly, really, it should be a fucking mess), the low cut tank top tucked into her jeans was a bright purple (but it still seemed too subdued), she should be wearing glasses. Eddie didn’t know where these thoughts were coming from but watching the woman joke about her ex-boyfriend’s dick sizes and how ugly the girls he replaced her with were Eddie somehow felt that this was Right and Normal, but also that something was horribly Wrong. The video ended and Eddie switched to Youtube searching up Trashmouth Tozier and getting lost in a loop of auto played specials and interviews.

Her old stuff was way funnier, phone camera quality videos of the now-25 year old comedian at age 19, 20, 21, in too big hawaiin shirts and dirty converse, hair poofing in a ponytail and thick rimmed glasses perched on her nose. Those video’s felt… safe… in a weird way that reminded her of Home (she didn’t know which home it could possibly be though, definitely not her mother’s or the apartment she shared with her Fiance). The jokes were better, disgusting, but not in the Sexist Hetero way her newer stuff was… it wasn’t until the video quality got better and the Trashmouth’s look got more male fantasy than quirky cute that the comedy started to nosedive.

Eddie had a sneaking suspicion the woman was no longer writing her own jokes despite what multiple interviews claimed.

_{Interviewer: What do you have to say to the critics who say you don’t write your own jokes?_

_Richie: Nope they’re wrong! Sorry I know it seems impossible a woman can be this banging and the funniest person alive but it's true! [Richie laughs but the line sounds rehearsed… at least to one Edith Kaspbrak]_

_Interviewer: Well you heard it here first folks! Now Richie you go through a lot of boyfriends, care to talk about-}_

The only interview that doesn’t feed the growing feeling of wrongness in Eddie’s gut is one she has to search for. She finds it on Twitter with the caption ‘She’s so fucking chaotic when shes drunk asdfghjkl no wonder they tried to cover this up!’

{[Richie lays on the floor of a blue soundstage, golden retriever puppy suspended above her head from her extended arms. Her blouse is unbuttoned and hanging from one shoulder, tank top underneath unmatching, and her hair is loose, another puppy getting tangled in the mess of curls coming unstraightened]

R: Oh my GOD hello I want this one can I take this one I’m adopting this one!

[Laughter from crew]

-

R: One time management set me up with this guy just ‘cuz they like KNEW he’d be the worst and I could get some good chucks out of it and it SUCKED!

[Whispering to puppy in lap]

R: I punched him but shhhh [giggles] I'm bad at punching it hurt but but but I’d punch everyone on the planet to protect you my darling Bowie!

Crew member: Bowie?

R: I wasn’t kidding! This dog is mine now!

-

R: I’ve always been weirdly attracted to fanny packs I don’t know WHY though 

-

R: My childhood is the biggest blur like I assume I was high through literally all of it. Or like suppressed some Big Boy trauma.

-

R: Honestly like… fuck men am I RIGHT?

-

R: Bowie! Bowie guess what!

[Too Loud whisper to puppy]

This was such a bad fucking idea Mr. Buzzfeed is never gonna be allowed to post this!

-

R: I’m the Trashmouth! I’m very drunk and have a new dog. This has been the celebrity dog interview thing!}

Eddie watched that leaked interview over and over until her phone alarm beeps to tell her to get up and take her meds.

-

“Edith-Bear! I brought you dinner!” She shuts the laptop quickly, cutting off 19 year old Richie in the middle of a joke about getting cross faded and jumping into her campus fountain.

Myran walks in, placing a tepid bowl of what looks suspiciously like only broth on her bedside table.

“I didn’t want to get anything that could upset your stomach.” She nods, it tastes more like water than anything else but its sweet he thought of her.

Just like how it really is sweet how he feels her forehead and clucks before brushing her hair back.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go to work tomorrow sweetie. You’re cool now but it can change on a dime you know, and I hear the flu is going around.” She squirms out from under his hand.

“I really feel fine Myran!” He hums, unconvinced.

“We’ll see, what’d you do today? I hope you rested like I suggested?” He laughs a little like he made a joke and she joins in, awkward and a bit uncomfortable.

“I did, I just… watched some videos and stayed in bed.” He nods satisfied and she finishes her broth.

Later that night, watching some boring reality tv program that Myran finds endlessly amusing, Eddie decides to broach a topic that's been on her mind since she watched the unposted Buzzfeed interview.

“So, honey, I was thinking of getting tickets to a show. You wouldn’t need to come I know it’s really not your thing, but the comedian I’ve been wanting to see is coming to the city for a bit and well… I don’t know.”

“Oh Edith I don’t know if I’m comfortable with you going to a comedy show alone, those places are honestly disasters waiting to happen. Maybe I could come, we could make a… date night out of it. Who's the comedian?” She brightens at that, he's being more receptive than she had expected and she couldn’t remember the last time she got to have any say on a date night.

“Richie Tozier, she isn’t really your style of comedy, honestly she's not that good but-”

“Oh Edith no! That woman is… well you know I really don’t like to talk like this, but she’s trashy. A woman like you shouldn’t be around someone so… crass! It's too much for you!” And there it was. Her earlier anger returned, simmering up to low annoyance.

“I watched a lot of her stuff today honey, I think I’ll be fine.” Myran looked over at her sharply.

“I don’t want you watching that woman’s garbage anymore Edith-Bear. I know what's best for you and it’s far too vile.”

“Myran I-”

“Oh now you are getting all worked up, maybe you should get ready for bed dear.”

And well, that was the end of that.

Eddie went to sleep at 8:30 pm and dreamt of a crowded hammock and broken arms and sunlight shining through dirty quarry water.

She didn’t remember her dreams when she woke up.

It wasn’t until she opened her laptop at work the next morning (she had woken up earlier than Myran, and he couldn’t stop her this time) and a younger Richie Tozier’s voice rang out that she realized dully that she had forgotten about the comedian. She muted the video, embarrassedly waving apologies to her coworkers, and watched as the girl walked around stage silently.

And in perhaps the most rebellious move she can ever remember making, Edith ‘Eddie’ Kaspbrak booked one ticket for the ‘Trashmouth Tozier: Exes and Hoes’ show scheduled in New York on a weekend that Myran would be away on business.


	2. The Woman In The Second Row

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie Tozier just wants to go home, pet her dog, and sleep (and maybe murder some men, but that isn't as possible) until she spots a woman in the second row, and deviates from a script she doesn't even know she was supposed to follow, by going to have dinner with Eddie Kaspbrak 15 years too early.

“I fucking hate this dress Steve.” The dress in question was short, tight, green, and the bane of Rachel ‘Richie’ Tozier’s existence.

“Well maybe if you dropped a few pounds you’d like it more.” Steve’s tone was joking but she had been with him for 4 years and was able to translate it into 'shut up because you’re wearing it fat ass'. Objectively, Richie knew she wasn’t what her manager liked to call a ‘Chubster’. She was still barely growing out her childhood scrawniness, but Steve seemed intent on using thinly veiled threats to make her stay that way.

She refused to admit that it was working.

“Fuck you.” An intern interrupted the awkwardness the two attempted to pretend was comedic.

“2 minutes Miss Tozier!”

“Thanks bud, also…it’s Richie? Please?” He nods nervously before leaving and Steve pours her a drink. Having something to drink before she performed had started as a joke, something to ‘calm her nerves’ when she was 20 and could manage to wheedle alcohol out of the bartender at the club where she had weekly sets. At this point shes pretty sure its become a coping mechanism but its not like she has a fucking therapist so who cares. She tosses it back, scooping up the jacket she had cajoled her stylist into letting her wear over the Hell Dress.

“Okay let's do this thing shithead.”

-

“Yeah I broke up with my most recent boyfriend becuase I walked in on him fucking this real _bitch_.”

[Not True, her most recent actual boyfriend had broken up with her becuase she wouldn’t sleep with him despite all the jokes about it in her sets, ‘like some fucking peverted dyke’, she didn’t like thinking about Tyler who she had barely wanted to date in the first place.]

“Total bitch! She had this curly light brown hair, really cute, four legs, a tail...”

[Laughter, mostly male, from the audience who has caught on]

“ _OKAY_ yup you’ve got me, I dated a man who I walked in on having sex with his dog. Alright maybe it was more like an intense Frenching session but that was way too fucking weird for me to keep dating him, like, it was burned into my brain!”

[Richie Dramatically Fake Cringes, but it isn’t fake, she hated this joke, it alway got a lot of laughs but it made her want to go home and give Bowie apology pets]

“Anyway that's how my sex life is going! All the gentlemen in the audience, see you later tonight, and to all their wives: sorry I’m so hot and going to fuck your husbands!”

[Audience Laughs, but there is a woman in the second row, barely visible with the lights, who looks confusedly stricken at the last joke, a deviant in the well crafted script of all her shows. Shit, she looks really fucking familar. Something in her expression ignites something warm and comfortable in Richie, like when you are little and have a really bad day until you hug your mom off the school bus and break down because you feel _safe_. This woman’s eyes look safe and Richie needs to look away.]

“Good night New York!”

-

The Woman is lingering awkwardly in the back of the lobby, staring at the poster advertising the show on the wall when Richie walks out to sign autographs and take pictures.

People start to cheer and her head whips around, the two make eye contact. And the safe feeling she had emitted in the audience increases tenfold as Richie looks directly into her big brown puppy dog eyes. She wonders distantly if the Woman has an inhaler in her purse.

Which is ridiculous because Richie has literally never met this woman before so why _on Earth_ would she wonder that.

She goes forward with signing and pictures, one man makes a grab at her chest that she easily side steps, squeezing her Sharpie so tightly it leaves an indent in her palm. By the time the crowd has almost entirely dispersed she sort of wants to scream, light her dress on fire, or take a nap, before she looks up and all her senses are reassaulted by the confusing sensation of seeing The Mystery Woman, still standing in the lobby, eyes trained on Richie.

Well, _fuck_ Richie needs to go talk to her _now_.

She waves off the bodyguard attempting to guide her backstage and crosses over to the woman.

“Hi, who are you?” Well she could have handled that with more grace, the Woman looks startled and anxious now, but Richie has never been very good at thinking through what she says.

“Oh… hello. I’m Edith Kaspbrak?”

“Hello Eddie, I’m Richie Tozier, do we know each other?” The woman snorts (It is really cute, Richie thinks before stopping herself rather forcefully) and half rolls her eyes in a way that feels _so normal_ Richie can hardly stand it.

“I… don’t know, I saw some of your stuff and you looked so freaking familiar, but I couldn’t place it.” And that sort of sounds like a line that Richie would be advised by security and Steve to not take from a stranger, but Fuck those guys, this Woman… this Eddie has something about her that Richie can’t ignore.

“Wanna get some dinner Miss Eddie Kaspbrak?” The woman hesitates before something steely flashes in her eyes.

“I’d love to.” Eddie grins up at her nervously but challengingly at her and Richie feels her cheeks warm and she instinctively throws up finger guns (like a flustered _idiot_ ).

“Coolio, let me go change and I’ll meet you out here!”

-

Eddie was sort of freaking out.

This was not the intended outcome of her night of rebellion but was she supposed to say _no_ to the famous comedian who had captivated her against all odds when she asked her to dinner?

She had expected going to this show to be the end of it, she’d get her newfound restlessness and doubt in her current life out of her system and would go back to Myran confident in their relationship, all curiosity about Rachel Tozier wiped cleanly from her mind.

That had not happened during the (unfunny but well preformed) show and whatever this was, was not helping.

Because Richie had called her Eddie without being asked too, something no one had ever done in her memory despite it being what made her most comfortable. Something about _Richie_ just made her comfortable, things like how she had introduced herself like she wasn’t _Richie Fucking Tozier_ and the stupidly awkward finger guns that had been shot in her direction.

Richie came back out, bag slung over her shoulder, in different clothes, and Eddie felt most of the tension drain from her shoulders.

Richie was wearing obnoxiously yellow sneakers, a baggy but obviously nice sweater tucked into cuffed jeans, the whole look was still a bit too stylized and Eddie still couldn’t ignore the distinct lack of glasses on the comedian’s face (something that still puzzled her because Richie hadn’t been spotted in public wearing glasses since she was just out of college and picking up traction) but _this_ version of Richie just felt _right_. So, ignoring all the tiny voice in her head (which sounded like a garbled combination of Myran and her Mother) shouting all the ways running off with a stranger could go wrong and how eating in city restaurants she hadn’t thoroughly researched for cleanliness and ability to adapt to the lengthy list of her allergies could _kill someone so delicate_ , Eddie let herself be guided down the street by a famous female comedian who felt more like home in 2 minutes of stilted introduction than her partner of 3 years.


	3. Shake Shack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two have dinner at the Very Fancy resturant of Richie's choosing and try to figure everything out. They don't get very far.

“This is a Shake Shack.”

“Correct.”

Eddie’s face was screwed up in concerned confusion before she tugged her phone out of her purse and began to type rapidly.

“What?”

“I have a lot of allergies. I don’t think I’ll be able to eat here. I’m going to be honest I was kind of expecting some place nicer and was planning on just asking for a lot of substitutions but this is a _Shake Shack_.”

“Okay, first of all Eds, stop dissing Shake Shack,” Eddie scrunched her nose, displeased at the nickname which made something concerningly mischievous spark in Richie’s eyes.

“Secondly, are you vegetarian?”

“Well… no but-“

“Can you have fries?”

“Most of the time but the sodium in them-“

“Oh my god the fucking _sodium_? Okay, whatever, now the million dollar question- are you lactose intolerant?”

“Well… no but I _am_ probably lactose sensitive so I really shouldn’t have anything dairy related.” Richie threw her arms up before slamming them back down on her hips.

“Okay that cannot _possibly_ be a thing, and all that tells me is that you haven’t had ice cream in forever so we’re getting you a shake. I’ll even pay for it like a real gentleman.” Eddie rolled her eyes, shoving away the arm that Richie had offered her.

“Okay, whatever, fuck it, let’s go.” Richie let out a celebratory whoop,dragging Eddie in with the arm she had rejected.

They ordered, well Richie ordered after listening to Eddies unnecessarily long list of things she absolutely could not eat, and somehow found a corner table that suited Eddie’s cleanliness inspection (she still wiped down the tabletop with the wet wipes in her purse, ‘Good girl, you never know what disgusting, germy hands have been all over a public restaurant’ her mother praised in her head). The restaurant is strangely crowded for the time but when Eddie points it out Richie snorts and says something inexplicable like “oh this is nothing!” which does nothing but fully baffle her.

“Question, Eds.”

“Stop calling me that, asshole, and I’ll answer it.” Eddie was honestly shocked at how rude she was being, but the comedian was eating it up and easily shooting back and it felt so comfortable she didn’t stop herself.

“Literally what restaurants can you eat in, that was like a six page list of potential allergens.” Eddie flushed.

“It wasn’t _that long_ -“

“Six pages single spaced.”

“And to answer your question… mm, honestly I think the last time I went to a restaurant was when I got engaged?” Richie stared at the ring on Eddie’s finger for an uncomfortably long time, before snapping up, cheeks pink.

“Oh… congrats man! But you still didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh it was an Olive Garden.”

“ _AN OLIVE GARDEN?_ ”

“Richie _shut up_ Olive Garden is a perfectly _fine_ restaurant!” Eddie hissed, acutely aware of the eyes from fellow Shake Shack diners on their table. Richie’s face grew suddenly somber and dramatically sympathetic.

“Oh Eds, it is absolutely _not_!” She broke out if her pseudo-seriousness and began to cackle again,“Literally _what_ though, is your fiance just the _worst_?”

And Richie is obviously joking so Eddie doesn’t know why that statement rings so resolutely in her mind, but she suddenly feels defensive.

“Literally shut the fuck up you don’t even know me! Myran is great.” Richie pulls away, leaning cautiously back with her hands up placatingly.

“Whoa chill! Sorry that was… rude.” And suddenly the expected awkwardness of having dinner with a complete stranger in a crowded New York City Shake Shack makes itself apparent.

“Look I’m… I mean.. I’m sorry, I’m sure Myran is a great guy!”

“He is.” Her answer, as icy and curt as it is, sounds unconvincing even to her own ears.

“Cool.”

“Mhm.” Eddie experimentally bites into a fry, ignoring Richie across the table, eyes low but watching and hands in her lap, rubbing nervously at her palm.

“How’s all that sodium treatin’ ya?” She asks cautiously and Eddie unexpectedly snorts half eaten french fry onto the table.

“Oh _ew_ shut up!”

“Never!” Eddie feels the awkwardness begin to dissipate.

“Anyway, back to business: how do we know each other? College?” Oh, yeah, she had almost forgotten about that.

“No, I went to NYU you went somewhere in California right? You mentioned it in that one show from-“

“You’ve watched my old shows? Are you a _fan_ Eddie Spaghetti? That’s embarrassing!”

“Jesus Christ I literally bought a ticket to your show and met you after watching it asshole.”

“I mean my old shit is embarrassing so..”

“Better than your new shit.” Eddie didn’t mean to say it as loud as she did but Richie choked on her shake.

“ _Shit_ Eds tell me how you really feel!” Eddie felt her cheeks burn, readying hundreds of apologies that fall short of spewing out when she realizes Richie is grinning.

“Look, can we just figure how we know each other?”

“Hey, I’m not the one who attacked your career!” Eddie rolls her eyes, studying Richie’s face, trying to place where the stunning familiarity that lined it was from. Richie rubbed at her palm again. Wait.

Eddie reached across the table, snatching the other woman’s left hand and scrutinizing it closely, ignoring how Richie yelped and steadied the cups Eddie had almost knocked over in her excitement. Despite her expectations, actually being right still made her feel light headed. Crookedly across the comedian’s palm was a faded but deep scar, cutting unevenly across in the same way Eddie’s was.

“What the fuck!”

“Dude _what_ …”

“Where’d you get this scar?” She felt a little bad when Richie flinched at her intensity but this was _weird_. Way too weird for a woman who’s biggest risk up until now was buying a ticket to a comedy show she could fully afford and was 100% within her legal rights to purchase.

“I don’t _know_ probably like a drunk bender or something, literally what are you talking about? This is such a change of subject!”

“No! No, no, no it’s not look!” Eddie shoved her hand in Richie’s face.

“Huh. Well looky there.”

“This is weird right?!” And Richie nods aggressively.

“Very bizarre. Where’s yours from?”

“What?”

“The scar?” Richie nods to Eddie’s hand and she pulls it back, blushing.

“Oh! Well… I don’t really know I’ve sort of always had it?”

“Well that is real fuckin’ helpful!”

“Hey! I don’t know maybe we knew each other when we were younger? I don’t remember much from like… middle school?” Richie nods earnestly and starts to speak when her phone rings loudly from her pocket.

“Christ, sorry, I could have sworn I had it on vibrate- shit I should take this, sorry! Steve! What? I’m at _dinner_ asshole- No I’m not! You are such a dick! Dude it’s literally almost midnight- _now_?” Eddie can only hear Richie’s side of the conversation but she looks stressed and really fucking annoyed. She focuses on stirring her half melted milkshake and pretends not to eavesdrop.

“Fucking _bye_! I’m so sorry about that, I need to go.”

“Now?” Eddie does a poor job of masking the disappointment in her voice, but judging Richie’s expression she isn’t thrilled about the impromptu exit either.

“My manager has been trying to get me a gig at this big theatre for literally _months_ and the only time the guy who runs it is willing to video chat with me to confirm is in like 20 minutes which is so dumb but-“

“I get it, it’s fine! Go!”

“Gimme your phone.” Without waiting for Eddie to offer Richie scoops her iPhone off the table, holding it out for Eddie to unlock and typing something in.

To:

**My Favorite Comedian Ever**

🍆🍑

Eddie giggled despite herself, snatching it back and quickly adding ‘least’ before ‘favorite’ in Richie’s self assigned contact name, ignoring the other woman's squawk of protest.

“You _suck_!” They sobered as their laughs tapered off, “see you around Eds!”

Eddie watched from the window as Richie walked out, hailed a cab, and sped out of sight; something in her stomach tightening, and not from the milkshake (because Richie was right, she’s pretty sure Myran just made up Lactose sensitivity).

She tried to think back of what she had been thinking about before Richie’s phone rang… something about middle school? Maybe.

The thought had vanished, and as she threw away Richie’s half eaten meal and her own cold fries she couldn’t help but feel like it was almost as if she had come dangerously close to figuring out something the universe didn’t want her to know.

But that’s ridiculous.

She started back to the parking garage where she had left her car before the show, ignoring the cabs stalling by the side of the road and the underground entrances lining the sidewalk. Driving was cleaner than the subway or a taxi anyway.


	4. The First Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie forgets Eddie again when she leaves the resturant.  
> Eddie forgets Richie again when she gets into her car.  
> Eddie impulsivley makes a call a month later and Richie impulsivly picks up.

“Leave me _ALONE_!”

“Why don’t you _love me anymore Edith_?” Myran wailed from the other side of the door, slamming on it until it was clear that Eddie wasn’t about to open it. She could hear his loudly broken sobs as he sulked down the hallway, and part of her ached with guilt, he was just trying to _help_ her, they were going to be married in a few months why was she _the worst_?

She refrained from opening the door, hands shaking in her lap becuase, _fuck_ , Myran had gone way too far and she needed a minute before she rescalated the situation. Her sneaking suspicion that he had been trying to get her to quit had been confirmed this morning when she had woken up to find him on the phone with her boss trying to explain why she needed to be fired.

She had lost whatever careful composure she was usually able to hold onto when he frustrated her, shouting over Myran’s promises that _he knew what was best_ , and well… things had gotten ugly.

She had a feeling there would be a new prescription waiting for her on the kitchen counter when she finally left the spare room, something for the ‘anger issues’ Myran had recently taken to claiming she may have due to her ‘emotional outbursts’.

And maybe he’s right, he knew better than her, he always had. Just like her mother.

But right now she’s angry and needs to do _something_ , talk to someone who isn’t fucking Myran about something that isn’t how ‘delicate’ she is or she’s gonna snap.

She could call her mother.... or that one receptionist at work who likes to sit with her at lunch and complain about her personal issues to Eddie. But (suppressing how deeply depressing it is that those are the two closest people in her life other than Myran who isn’t an option) she finds herself scrolling past their contacts in her texts and settling on one she barely remembers making.

She’d only texted them once (a truly baffling pair of emojis) a month ago, and unlike her other contact names [ **Myran Jones** , **Mother** , **Alexia McAddams** _**(Receptionist)**_ ] the name gives little context to who the hell it could be. She doesn’t even have a favorite comedian so how could she know who was her _least_ favorite? And why would she have their contact anyway?

She still clicks call.

" _Hello? Who’s this?_ "

Oh shit. _Richie_.

“Hi… My name is Eddie Kaspbrak… we met… shit wait-” Why the fuck was her memory of this woman so _blurry_?- “At one of your shows! Yes I… this is stupid I don’t know why I called you I’m sorry I’ll-”

“ _Wait wait… Eddie? Yeah, yeah I remember you I think… what's up?_ ”

-

Richie wakes up to her phone ringing and watery light from the sunrise filtering through her shitty curtains. Bowie whines at her shifting as she grabs her glasses. The comedian absently scratches under his chin and blinks sleep out of her eyes at the clock on her bedside table.

6 in the fucking morning. She’s gonna kill Steve.

It is not Steve, instead it's an unknown number with a New York area code, probably a telemarketer or something.

She still slides to answer.

“Hello? Who’s this?” Bowie has settled into her lap grumpily, he’s not much of a morning dog, she huffs out a laugh and mouths ‘sorry’ to him, when she realizes the woman on the other end of the line is rambling.

“ _Hi… My name is Eddie Kaspbrak… we met… shit wait- at one of your shows! Yes I… this is stupid I don’t know why I called you I’m sorry I’ll-_ ” Eddie? She doesn’t think she knows an Eddie… fuzzy images of big brown (safe) eyes and milkshakes swim in her sleep addled mind as she tries to piece everything together.

“Wait wait… Eddie? Yeah, yeah I remember you I think… what's up?”

“ _I… this is stupid. I mean I-_ ”

“Well you woke me up at like 6 in the morning dude, I’m awake now, talk to me Eds.”

“ _It’s Eddie_.” Richie snorts at how quickly the woman’s tone shifted from nervous to annoyed, at least she isn’t rambling anymore. She doesn’t know why she wants to stop this almost-stranger’s clear distress so badly, but it almost feels like second nature.

“Not my point bud.”

“ _6 in the morning isn’t even that early, asshole, we’re adults._ ”

“Well I’m an adult who went to bed 3 hours ago. Literally how are you so coherent? Wait... that was stupid, time differences, ignore me, you’re like 3 hours ahead of me.” The woman on the other end lets out an incredulous giggle.

“ _Oh yeah, sorry about that, I kind of forgot about time zones. How do you even know that off the top of your head?_ ”

“I’m smart?” That gets an outright laugh from Eddie, and Richie feigns offense (inside the weird need to help Eddie calm down settles comfortably to the back of her mind, satisfied).

“ _Hey_ , asshole! I’ll have you know I was my senior class valedictorian!”

“Were you actually?”

“Well I _would_ have been, but I moved my senior year and they made me retake my gym credit because it didn’t transfer which messed with my GPA and I’m _still mad about it_. But I was salutatorian so close enough.”

“ _Yeah that sounds like you, Trashmouth… sorry that was a weird thing to say._ ”

“Nah I think it's a pretty clear line to draw from… basically everything about me. Anyway… is there a particular reason you called?” She hears Eddie shift nervously and an uncharacteristically high level of concern bubbles up in her stomach.

She adjusts her hold on the phone, tugging at the frayed ends of her sleep shirt to keep her free hand busy and her focus on Eddie (the shirt is a too big one from one of her earlier years of high school, she presumes, it’s faded lettering reads **Derry High Softball** and there is a carefully embroidered **_SU_** on the tag, but it is an old mystery, and she doesn’t let it occupy her mind for long).

“ _I…_ ” Eddie coughs awkwardly, “ _I got in a fight with my fiance… it was probably my fault but I just needed to talk to someone… don’t know why I called you honestly._ ”

Woof, something about that sounded _off_ to Richie.

“What’d you fight about?” Well that wasn’t very tactful, but Eddie didn’t seem too offended.

“ _Its… stupid, he’s been trying to get me to quit my job before our wedding and he called my boss about it today. I got way too angry about it… it was on me._ ”

“Ok… _yikes_ that doesn’t sound like it was on you bud.”

“ _Well it was shitty of him but I-_ ”

“Look I can’t really say, but that sounds _very_ shitty and kind of controlling of him so I’d stop blaming yourself.” Eddie is silent on the other end for a beat too long and Richie suddenly grows worried she overstepped, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“ _Can we talk about something else? Please?_ ”

“Yeah… I mean, how’s life?”

“ _Well currently not fucking great_ ,” Richie snorted at the bluntness, “ _but pretty alright… how’re you?_ ”

“ _Well currently_ some mad woman woke me up at _6 AM_ but, while my dog may never forgive you for waking him up, I suppose I can make an exception.” Eddie laughed softly.

“ _Well apologize to your dog for me, I refuse to apologize to you though because it's only 6 AM don’t be a baby._ ”

“Well now Bowie definitely won’t forgive you! You just insulted his favorite human!” Richie laughed through her fake indignation, bantering back and forth with the other woman about practically nothing until Eddie heard Myran unlock the front door and had to hang up.

-

The next time Eddie needed to talk they both knew who the other’s contact belonged to, whether it be due to the multiple pictures of sleepy golden retriever Richie had accusingly texted Eddie after their call or something else (the something else that had led both women to clicking unknown contacts in the first place) that helped them remember, neither quite knew.


	5. The Phone Calls That Follow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a lot of things happen, Richie and Eddie become best friends over the phone, and Eddie makes a major life change.  
> (TW! emotional abuse)

“I have a performance in like 20 minutes I need to _go_.” Richie groans from her upside down position on her bed, one leg in the air as she tugs on a heeled boot Eddie’s not 100% sure she can walk in but apparently ‘make her ass look great’.

“Nope not allowed, I’m bored and on bedrest, entertain me.” Richie finishes pulling on her shoes and flops on her stomach to face her phone, head cocked.

“Why are you on bedrest again?”

“Myran is convinced I gave myself toxic shock syndrome because he found tampons in my purse and he’s making me stay home so he can make sure I’m fine.”

“ _Jesus Christ_.”

“He’s trying to help Rich-”

“He’s being controlling and weird Eds.” She interrupts bluntly and Eddie flushes.

“I mean I do have cramps so-”

“Are you on your period?”

“...Yes. _Stop laughing at me_! I could have TSS you don’t know!” But Eddie is laughing too. Richie drops her head defeatedly into a nearby pillow.

“I really do need to go though, the venue is like half an hour away.”

“I thought you said the show is in-”

“Yup”

“Oh my god how have you survived this long?” Richie throws the pillow at her phone instinctually, cursing over Eddie’s cackling as it topples to the floor.

“Wait Bowie _no_!” The dog in question walks into frame, quizzically looking down at Eddie on FaceTime before bending to grab it in his mouth. Eddie continues to snort through the bottom framed shot of Richie launching herself from the bed and wrestling the device from the golden retriever. Her disheveled head pops back into the camera. “Sorry, I’m gonna go now before I can humiliate myself further.”

“Wait no! Leave the phone with Bowie, we’ll gossip about you while you’re gone!”

“Betrayal! Absolutely not! Don’t give him ideas! Now I’m leaving before you can corrupt him!” Eddie chuckles out a ‘Bye Richie!’ and the screen goes black.

Myran comes home 20 minutes later, reloading Eddie’s pill container for the week and handing her a box of pads, she nods along, apologizing and nodding when appropriate (ignoring the little voice that sounds suspiciously like Richie saying ‘controlling’ and how much she’d prefer to be talking to the other comedian). It was easier this way.

**-**

“Oh my _god_ are you _serious_!” Eddie is practically glowing as she laughs at Richie on the other end of the call. She’s sitting outside somewhere, baggy sweatshirt sleeves pulled over her hands and bulky headphones over her ears (apparently ‘earbuds are so fucking unsanitary’, or at least, that was the excuse she gave Richie when she was bullied about them upon answering the call). Richie feels her cheeks burning and she slams her head back on the tiled wall of the bathroom she’s locked herself in to avoid whatever is causing it.

“ _Yes!_ ”

“He just… ordered pickles and mayonnaise as an appetizer? Just…like... _together_?”

“ _YES_ , Edith Kaspbrak. I didn’t even need to fake being sick to get out of the date, I very genuinely threw up when I thought about it.”

“ _Ew_ , really?”

“I’m an emotional vomitter. This evoked a lot of emotions.”

“That is so fucking disgusting Richie. Wait… where even are you?”

“I’m still in the restaurant bathroom.” Eddie snorts into her hands, mumbling out unconvincing, giggly apologies when Richie lets out a distressed whine. “Well what was I supposed to do? It was supposed to be a casual lunch for paparazzi pictures or something, not a _traumatizing experience_.”

“Oh come on, that's the _only_ reason you went on a date with a _very handsome_ male model with the worst taste in food I’ve ever heard of?” She waggles her eyebrows but something in her tone is confusingly tight. Richie ignores the way those words make her stomach drop and her eyes burn. She realizes after a second that she's been quiet a beat too long, Eddie’s eyes full of concern and trained on the section of her forehead that is visible from where the phone is balanced on her knee.

“Eds. I don’t even know his fucking name.”

“Being on the worst date ever does not give you a free pass to call me that asshat.” Richie opens her mouth to retaliate when someone knocks on the door 6 times in quick succession.

“Rachel?” Eddie muffles her snort, pressing her mouth to the wrist of sweatshirt, at the way Richie’s face screws up from hearing her full name, “Are you in there? Everything okay?”

“Ugh, I think I’m sick! I’m so sorry! I was so looking forward to it but I threw up! It's everywhere! Everywhere!” The man makes a disgusted noise and then tries to suppress it with concern.

“Oh! Okay, I’ll… pay the bill then! Do you need a ride home?”

“I’ll be fine! I’m really so sorry!” He walks away and she lets out a breathy chuckle, which escalates to full blown laughter when she looks back down to find Eddie staring at her, mouth open.

“What?”

“What the fuck was _that_? You sounded actually fucking _sad_!”

“It's called acting Eddie. It was my minor in college!”

“Oh my _god_ of course it was.”

“Stop being _mean_! I need to stay in this diner bathroom for like at least 20 more minutes to make sure he’s actually gone. I deserve _sympathy_!”

“I’ll keep you company but I’m not about to be nice to someone who got roped into a date with Mr. Mayo-Pickle-Man.”

“I suppose that’s fair.”

Somehow, Richie finds, half an hour locked in a (honestly fucking disgusting) diner bathroom FaceTiming Eddie is far more pleasent than her hour long date with the man Steve had described as Richer-Than-Her-And-Way-Out-Of-Her-League.

She pretended it was because she didn’t need to watch Eddie eat 6 Dill pickles dipped in Mayo (but she knew that wasn’t the only reason).

**-**

“Okay I know it's super early for you but I just woke up and mixed cereals into one bowl for breakfast like you suggested and it was fucking gross. So thanks.”

“What kind of cereal?”

“Muesli and Raisin Bran.”

“Oh my fucking god… I’m going back to bed you’re hopeless.”

**-**

“So I went on a run like you suggested to make up for my apparent 'bad cereal advice' and now I feel like my legs are going to fall off so I guess we both give bad advice.”

“Did you _stretch_?”

“Why would I stretch? It was just a jog.”

“You somehow stress me out more than my job and I work in finances.”

**-**

“Eds you deserve better than that.”

“No! He just loves me… he doesn’t want me to get hurt!”

“I know how excited you were about that business trip, _he_ should have been excited _for you_ and trusted you to be able to take care of yourself!”

“I… I can’t do that Rich.”

“Yes, Eddie, you absolutely can. You can do _anything_.”

**-**

“Eddie...did you… mail me a christmas sweater with a flamingo in a santa hat on it?”

“Okay so I know you live in California but you still need _warm clothing_ and I mean… if you hate it you don’t need to wear it!”

“I’m literally never taking it off fuck you its the best thing I own.”

**-**

“I’m having an asthma attack and I didn’t know who to call! What should I do? I'm freaking out and Myran isn’t home and I don’t want to call 911 but I can’t really breathe so-”

“I AM ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY WHY WOULD YOU CALL ME?”

**-**

“God, I want to actually see you, Eds.”

“What?”

“Nothing!”

**-**

“Richie what the _fuck_ are you wearing?”

“A dress? Dude, I’m literally at the Emmys right now can this wait?”

“Fuck no it can’t! You look literally so uncomfortable, it’s already trending on Twitter!”

“No it is _not_!”

“Would I lie about that?”

“Probably. You are my meanest cyberbully!”

“I am not!”

“You opened this call with ‘what the fuck are you wearing’!”

“That didn’t mean I don’t think you look super fucking pretty! Your dress is just stupid!”

“Wait… sorry it's really loud here, what was that?”

“I… your dress is stupid.”

“Well _I_ didn’t pick it! But I’m still a certified hottie, right?”

“I… good luck tonight Rich! I gotta go.”

**-**

“She’s my friend Myran. I want her at my wedding.”

“Your _friend_? Edith-bear, We’ve never even _met_ this woman. How could you possibly be _friends_?”

“I have met her! We’ve been talking for months!” He practically recoiled, eyes growing concerningly watery.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this Edith-bear?” He reaches for her cheek and she pulls back, guilt eating at her heart as big, fat tears begin to roll down Myran’s cheeks.

“I… I went and saw her show, we got dinner after. It's really not a big deal, honey!”

“I told you I didn’t want you to go to that show! And you lied to me about it! I only want what’s best for you Edith, you always do this!” And that brings out the uncomfortable anger that Myran’s… control issues… usually cause. But this time it feels different. It feels stronger.

“I can make my own decisions Myran.”

“No you CAN'T! I know what is best for you Edith and it isn’t associating with some slutty, disgusting comedian.” And _shit_ that makes Eddie so much angrier than it should. He didn’t know Richie. He couldn’t say that about Richie.

“Than what the fuck is best for me Myran?”

“Language!”

“I’m 26 I can fucking curse if I want to!” She doesn’t know where this fury is coming from but _fuck_ it feels _awful_.

“You _need me Edith_.” Myran is openly sobbing as he shouts and that's when everything clicks into place.

Myran is never going to trust her, he is never going to let her make her own decisions or friends, he’s going to control her and her body and mind until she can’t remember anything different.

With slowly dawning horror she realizes she _can’t_ remember anything different.

( _“Eddie you absolutely can. You can do anything.”_ )

Richie’s words spring to her mind before she can stop them. And she knows what she needs to do even if there is nothing she’d rather do less.

“I think we need to take a break.”

“ _Edith-bear_ you are hysterical! Go lie down we can discuss this later.” And she feels like she can’t breathe. Rage and grief and fear are filling up her lungs like sewer water, bitter and unwelcome.

“I… I am an adult woman, Myran. I can make my own choices and I am not fucking marrying you.”

“ _Edith_!” Shakily she storms past him, haphazardly shoving clothes, toiletries, and whatever she can find in a soft sided suitcase she’d last used when moving into their apartment.

She’s trying to maintain her composure, panic coiling in her gut as she tries to not forget anything as she packs 5 years of her life into a single bag. Anxiety spiking when Myran grabs her arm before she can leave, she tears away, slamming the door behind her.

She can hear Myran screaming, she can feel her suitcase slam against her ankles as she carries it to her car, she can see the absurd price for a plane ticket to California _tonight_ , she can process that she’s driving, but she’s working on autopilot. It isn’t until she is sitting on a plane 4 hours later, eyes unfocused on the inflight movie and newspaper she bought at a convenience store in the airport torn into strips on her tray table that everything hits her at once.

And she bursts into tears. They feel more relieved than she expected them to under the overwhelming dread.

The middle aged man in a nice suit sitting next to her is kind enough not to acknowledge it. She keeps twisting the newspaper on her tray table.

Despite everything screaming at her that she just ended something important, deep down she couldn’t help feel like this was nothing more than a beginning.


	6. A Bad Night And The Okay Morning That Follows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Richie finally see eachother in real life again, not that circumstances are ideal.

Richie had just fallen asleep when her phone rang loudly from where she had dumped it on to a pile of clothes that she’d worn for an appearence on a talk show that had somehow taken 9 hours (they probably cost more than the phone, not that she really gave a shit, they were fucking ugly). She supposes, as she begrudgingly pulls herself out of bed, it’s either Eddie who wakes up at the ass crack of dawn and doesn’t give a shit about time zones or Steve because she fucked up somehow tonight, and either way it's better to just answer. 

“Hello~”

“ _ Richie? _ ” It’s Eddie, voice cracking with tears and relief. Richie suddenly feels like someone poured ice water down her back, overwhelmingly awake and worried all at once.

“Eds? Are you okay?” And the fact that she didn’t correct her tells Richie all she really needs to know about the other woman’s mental state.

“Can you pick me up?”

“Eddie I don’t know how to tell you how I’m on the other side of the fucking country.” She knew she sounded genuinely regretful through the sarcasm. 

“No… no _f_ _ uck _ … I’m not! I flew to California I’m like an hour from you, I don’t know what to  _ do _ Rich,  _ fuck _ !”

“Ok.... ok, ok, text me the location, I’m coming! It's ok!”

“… thank you,” She sighed out, throat rattling with unshed tears that made Richie’s heart clench, “I’m… gonna text you the address then.”

“I’ll be there soon okay?”

“Bye Rich I-  _ shit _ , bye.”

And she hung up and Richie pulled on the closest pair of shoes (fancily uncomfortable boots from the talk show appearance that suddenly feels like it was days ago) and started off to an airport an hour away at 3 in the morning. 

**-**

Eddie has been staring into the open top of her rapidly cooling airport coffee for longer than she should. They got her order wrong, she usually takes it black and the dead eyed graveyard shift barista had sweetened it to a sickly degree. It didn’t really matter anyway, she wasn’t planning on drinking it, she just needed something to keep her from spiraling into tears again.

“ _ Eddie! _ ” And when she snaps up, lukewarm coffee splashing on her hand, she can see Richie’s rumpled form jogging worriedly up to her. 

She feels her eyes start burning at the concern behind Richie’s glasses ( _ glasses _ . Finally  _ glasses _ . She feels so much safer than she ever has before with Richie, she pretends its finally seeing her in real life and not the fucking  _ glasses _ .) (But, god,  _ finally _ .)

And shit she's gonna spiral again.

“What  _ happened _ ?”

“Nothing I-”

“Eds I woke up at 3 AM and drove an hour for  _ nothing _ ?” And Eddie feels her welling tears start to pour down her cheeks. Richie was right, what was she  _ thinking _ ?

“God, I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have-”

“Shit no, no I’m sorry that was a really bad joke, it's okay I’m glad you called me! You don’t need to talk about it if you-”

“I broke up with Myran.”

“You…  _ shit _ … I mean  _ fuck yeah Eds _ !” And Eddie felt rage boil in the back of her throat, cardboard coffee cup collapsing under her tensing hands.

“ _ No  _ Richie!  _ NOT _ ‘fuck yeah’ what am I going to  _ do? _ ”

“Ok… you can stay at my apartment tonight, we can figure it out tomorrow but right now you don’t need to plan out your entire life. Unless you want to. Then like… that also works?” Eddie felt her face scrunch, anger shifting into bone deep exhaustion at Richie’s earnest awkwardness. She took the minute to actually look up at her friend, standing over her cautiously, thumb nervously pressing into her palm, oversized t-shirt tucked into sweatpants and too nice shoes, natural hair piled into a messy bun. ( _ Glasses _ ).

And somehow she felt like everything would be okay. Not good but okay was fine for right now. 

She ran her eyes over the almost stranger who had driven to pick her up at an airport too early in the morning and was now offering her fucking  _ house _ . She meant to thank her, genuinely, she did. But her thanks got distracted.

“Are you wearing a t-shirt with your own face on it?” 

“Oh  _ fuck you _ its a tour shirt!” And Eddie giggled wetly, letting Richie pull her off the bench she had balanced herself criss-cross atop. Richie hesitates and pulls her into a hug, and she falls into it greedily, eyes burning dangerously again. 

“So, what's the game plan here?” Eddie pulls back, folding in on herself a bit, because part of her feels that if she leaves this airport everything is suddenly going to become real. And she isn’t sure if she’s ready for that. But she’s tired and embarrassed from crying in front of so many strangers. And airports are disgusting

“Can we leave?”

“Hell yeah we can Eds” Richie bumped their shoulders lightly, and Eddie suddenly couldn’t comprehend how she went several months without seeing Richie in person. (She ignored how  _ weird _ that was).

So they walk to the parking lot, Richie guiding her along with one hand and rolling her suitcase with the other.

“That’s your fucking car?” Eddie’s not going to lie, she had been expecting to stop in front of something stupid and silly like a VW beetle. This was a far too sleek looking sports car, in an obnoxious orange color, but  _ still _ .

“Yeah?” Richie twirled the key ring on her pointer, not at all smoothly, almost dropping it several times. 

“Literally  _ how _ ?”

“I went to a dealership and said ‘I need a car’ and when they asked how much I wanted to spend I said ‘I mean I don’t care’ and this was the car in the funnest color so I bought it.”

“I  _ hate you _ and you are an  _ idiot _ .” But she was too busy ogling the car to sound too convincing. Richie paused, key ring landing in her other hand and jingling in Eddie’s face.

“Wanna drive? I’ll pull up the GPS.” 

“Fuck no I’m gonna crash it! Take better fucking care of your car dude don’t just let anyone drive your stupid mercedes or whatever the shit.” (she knew exactly what kind of car it was, she’d always been interested in them, but her mother had said it was unladylike, and Myran tended to agree with her mother).

“I mean you don’t  _ need  _ to, I don’t know, a lot of the time when you were stressed before you hung up you said you were gonna go for a drive to ‘clear your head’, thought it might help. Especially if you can calm yourself down in goddamn  _ New York City  _ traffic.” Richie huffed out a laugh walking to the drivers side, not noticing how Eddie was stood stock still, staring. She hadn’t even realized she’d  _ did that _ , Myran would always say she ‘shouldn’t get behind the wheel hysterical’, but she never listened. And Richie had noticed.

“Give me the keys.”

**-**

Richie’s apartment was smaller than Eddie was expecting, it was clearly nice despite it being relatively modest, cluttered but impersonal. Richie looked a little embarrassed. 

“I… am gonna go change the sheets on my bed. I have a feeling the length of time I’ve gone without changing them is gonna gross you out.”

“Oh fucking  _ ew _ .” The drive had soothed some of her anxieties, not all of them, the intensity of her new change settling low in her stomach to be dealt with later.

_ “Bowie WAIT _ -” Richie cried from her room and a golden bullet hurdled through the bedroom doorway and tackled Eddie into the wall. After her momentary shock she laughed from under the excited golden retriever, petting him easily as he wiggled above her happily. 

“Shit I’m  _ so sorry _ ,  _ Bowie _ ! Down!” Bowie did not move.

“No it's fine really! I mean as long as he isn’t going to attack me or anything.” Richie looked momentarily offended on her dog’s behalf before her face slipped into something more confused.

“But aren’t you allergic? I thought you’d be fucking freaking out by now.” Eddie racked her mental list of ailments.

“No? I found out I was allergic to cats when I wanted to get one for my apartment but not dogs.”

“Oh.. okay that must have been what I was thinking about… I could have sworn you, like, wanted to have one as a kid or something and your mom said no because the fur would kill you… or something? I don’t know I’m probably mixing stories you’ve told me.” Eddie sighed and nodded, sitting up and shifting Bowie over to Richie who had settled on the floor across from her.

“Sounds like my mom! Shit… my mom.” Her mother was going to kill her, she fucking  _ loved  _ Myran. She was going to  _ lose it  _ and Eddie was sure Myran had called Sonia already. She really had only used her phone to buy her ticket and call Richie several hours after, but if the constant buzzing before it had died back at the airport was anything to go by she was in for a fun conversation tomorrow. She slowed her breathing methodically until it fell back to normal. That was tomorrow. Tonight she wasn’t going to think about it. It took her a second to realize Richie was talking.

“-I don’t really have a lot of food but I could order if you are hungry or…”

“I’m just… really tired Rich, I’m sorry.” Richie’s eyes widened.

“Oh yeah of course no problem! Bathroom is over there if you need to get ready, um, just let me finish making my bed so you can use it!”

“I don’t want to take your  _ bed _ !” Richie rolled her eyes, shoving her glasses up her nose pointedly.

“Dude, I didn’t just fly across the country after divorcing my fiance… breaking up with? What is it called for a fiance? Pre-divorcing? It could-” 

“I get it! I’ll take it. Thanks Richie.” She interrupted. 

She completed her nightly bathroom routine in Richie’s small bathroom (traumatic life changes don’t call for poor hygiene, she had defended when teased through the door. But she did scale her skin care down to only 10 minutes because  _ shit _ all of a sudden she was just so tired). 

Richie’s bedroom at least had more personality than the rest of the cluttered, plain apartment. She noted the posters she could see from where the other woman propped her phone when they FaceTimed as she experimentally sniffed the blankets, they smelled fine but she still balked at her inability to confirm that they weren’t disgusting. Unfortunately beggars can’t be choosers. But they can be complainers and she made fun of Richie about her cleanliness until she was hit in the face with a pillow and told fondly to ‘sleep Eds!’ before being left alone.

In a strange room in the middle of Los Angeles.

She expected to panic more but even though she couldn’t process it, she felt safer here than she’d felt in years.

She falls asleep quickly. And dreams.

**A blurry red and white figure screeches for her to _go home_ , voice echoing hauntingly in a way that is only undermined by its clear desperation. Behind her a young Girl she can’t see but sounds so very familiar grips her arm (broken, all of a sudden it is burning with searing, red hot pain) shouts for Eddie to _look at her_.**

**The figure _screams_ and the Girl _screams_ back and Eddie finally turns to look at her young protector.**

**The scream is silenced abruptly, like something sucked all the sound out of the room.**

**Standing where the Girl should be is a small turtle.**

**Her arm no longer hurts.**

She wakes up then, and doesn’t remember any of it.

**-**

As Eddie reorients herself to the land of the living, she realizes foggily that she was woken by Richie shouting on the other side of the door.

“ _ Steve literally I’ve told you a hundred times it was a fucking emergency! _ ” And well… it's not that Eddie meant to eavesdrop, but she did mean to press her ear to the door and well, if she overheard Richie’s whole side of what sounded like a particularly heated phone call... that wasn’t  _ her  _ fault. At least in Eddie’s experience, it was safer to know what you were walking into.

“ _ Yes, I’m still doing the show later. Yes, Steve, I’m aware most of them aren’t there for the fucking comedy, my jokes suck. How many times do I have to tell you, my friend needed help, I didn’t exactly have time to do my fucking hair and put in contacts. _ ” Eddie felt something in her stomach clench with guilt. Richie was getting in trouble with her manager because of  _ her _ . Not for the first time in the past few hours, Eddie began to wonder if she’d made a mistake.

“ _ Yes, I was wearing a fucking bra? I don’t think- Oh I see. It was a small boobs joke. Fucking hilarious Steve, no really I’m laughing my nonexistant tits off. Literally fuck off. If I was anyone else I could fire you for harassment. No. No I won’t. Okay. Okay fine thank you for the cover up, she really doesn’t need her face in any tabloids right now. Yes I know that's not why you did it I’m trying to be sincere, fucker. Jesus Christ, GOODBYE, I’ll see you later.” _

Eddie hears the clack of what she assumes is Richie throwing her phone down somewhere and decides it's probably safe to come out.

“Eds! Hi! How’d you sleep? Hope I didn’t wake you up with… all of that?” Richie is slumped, socked feet pulled under her, on her couch (still covered with throw blankets she’d used the night before, and Eddie feels guilty again). When she sees Eddie though, she straightens, eyes nervously darting to her phone resting on the tv stand across the room.

“No! No, you didn’t don’t worry!” Eddie lies, shifting from foot to foot awkwardly until Richie gestures grandly to the open spot next to her on the couch. 

“Didn’t expect you to be a morning person.” Eddie jokes lightly, trying to fill the tense silence of both trying to figure out which of their thoughts they can voice in this bizarre situation.

“I mean, I’m really  _ not _ , it’s like 2 pm bud.”

“ _ What _ ?” Eddie is sure her scandalized gasp is a bit too dramatic, especially when Richie tries and fails to hold in her giggles, but she has quite literally never slept that late in her life. Her fiance had been a stickler for a consistent sleep schedule. 

“I mean, don’t freak, you had a  _ night _ and then didn’t go to bed until 5 AM in a brand new time zone, it makes sense you’d be all out of whack.” Eddie sort of knows that she is right but it doesn’t make it  _ better _ .

“Can I eat something before I plan out my whole future? Because I’m sort of starving.”

“Oh shit yeah! Yeah!” Richie springs up and Bowie takes her place on the couch quickly, wriggling up until his head is rested in her lap.

“I  _ don’t think _ I’ve been grocery shopping in forever though so your options are…” She makes a shitty almost-a-drum-roll noise as the fridge door is thrown open, “Option 1! Mystery take-out that I genuinely can’t remember ordering! Option 2! Beer! Option 3! I can make… eggs?” Eddie screws up her face before letting it fall defeatedly with a sigh.

“I guess eggs are the least likely thing to kill me… but with you cooking them who knows?”

“Damn, that's one reluctantly chosen egg coming up! And I’ll have you know I have been feeding myself for like 7 years all alone I won’t  _ kill you _ and frankly  _ I find your lack of faith distuuurbing _ !” She slips into a genuinely terrible Darth Vader impression that makes Eddie burst out laughing so hard she disturbs the dog on her lap.

“That was  _ awful _ !”

“It wasn’t  _ that bad _ !”

“Oh it absolutely was!” Richie is laughing now too, but she shakes the pan she’s holding in Eddie’s direction loosley.

“How do you like your eggs?”

“I don’t know? Eggs are gross and Myran pretty much only makes scrambled?” Richie crinkles her nose like she smelled something unpleasant.

“Of course he did, okay then! Scrambled eggs coming right up!”

“I’m surprised you know how to make eggs multiple ways honestly.”

“Dude I  _ told you _ , I’m a big girl! I’ve made my own food for like  _ almost _ a decade! Plust the lovely Maggie Tozier wouldn’t let her child go out into the world not knowing how to cook! Even though, just between you and me, I think she did it so I’d at least be useful when I was annoying her in the kitchen.” They both laugh at that but Richie’s is more wistful than Eddie has heard before, she decides not to comment on it. Soon after a plate of warm eggs is placed onto her lap.

“Oh my god I was right you are going to kill me!”

“Literally what are you talking about?”

“These are like… raw! They’re all wet and way too yellow, go cook them more! Do you even know all the diseases you could get from raw eggs? Have you ever heard of salmonella?!” Richie looks confused, shoving a forkful in her own mouth (which,  _ ew _ ).

“What the fuck? They're just normal eggs! What are you… wait... oh my gooood!” And Richie is actually shaking with held in laughter, even though her eyes look vaguely sympathetic behind the lenses.

“ _ What, _ asshole?!”

“Have you never had properly cooked eggs? They’re not supposed to be  _ dry _ !” And at that she breaks, cackling with her head thrown back, and Eddie feels her cheeks burn. Defiantly (and a bit curiously) she scoops up her own forkful and bites down on it. And  _ oh _ ,  _ those do taste better _ .

“Oh… shit. I didn’t know eggs could actually taste like anything...huh.”

“Oh my god. Did he even fucking  _ season them _ ?”

“No?”

“Jesus fucking Christ thank god you left him!” 

And for the first time when thinking about dumping Myran, Eddie laughs.


	7. Champagne and Cold Pizza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie is in a bad mood, Eddie proceeds to make it better, worse, and then better again without knowing what she's doing.

Richie took a long contemplative sip from the remaining bottle of shitty champagne from the 2 person party she threw Eddie at getting the lease to her new apartment, that had been a good night, Eddie forcing her to celebrate in her own already messy house instead of her brand new one 3 floors below Richie’s (according to her, a lower floor apartment was significantly safer incase of a fire). 

( _ “What if you put in a good word with me before the interview?” Eddie paced around the coffee table, she’d just gotten a call confirming the meeting with the Super that Richie promised was “just a formality” but she was still panicking a little. Richie had suggested she apply for apartments in other buildings to get the “true disaster that is first time independence” she’d missed in her early 20’s but Eddie was absolutely positive she couldn’t handle it and despite adamantly disagreeing, Richie was clear she would also be more than happy to live in the same building. _

_ “Eddie my love, I would suggest you pretend you don’t even know I exist if you want to get this apartment.” Eddie practically cackled at that, resettling herself next to Richie on the couch and unpausing the show they’d been watching.) _

Everything had been so nice with the new presence of Eddie that Richie had almost forgotten her life sucked.

Well until today when she’d had an interview that was more of an unfunny roast of every aspect of her career and body by an old white man named John Watterson who after some research she’d found had caused several scandals online for his flippant use of any slur he found amusing. And she’d had to laugh along and pretend she didn’t want to punch his self satisfied smirk off his smug fucking face. 

She swallowed down another mouthful of champagne (which wasn’t much helping) before starting on a slice of pizza, she hadn’t felt like cooking after that shit show. She hadn’t felt like doing much more than downing all the alcohol in her house and passing out by 8 pm.

Then someone knocked on her door. 

Fucking fantastic.

She didn’t move, hoping whoever the fuck wanted to talk to her (probably her Superindenant, she’d definitely not paid her utilities bill in a while) would just go away until Bowie started barking and Eddie’s voice sounded hesitantly through the door.

_ Eddie _ . Okay, she could do Eddie. Eddie honestly could make her foul mood better and no one in her memory had ever been able to do that before. 

She plastered on what she hoped wasn’t an entirely too fake looking smile and opened the door.

“Holy shit, thank god, I don’t know what I did  _ wrong! _ ” A pajama-clad, sauce smeared Eddie shoved past Richie, slamming what looked to be like some sort of casserole dish onto the counter.

“What?”

“Dude I messed up somehow and I don’t know how to  _ fix it, _ help me!” Eddie had been doing really fucking well on her own for the first time, but unfortunately cooking was absolutley not her strong suit. Richie dug a fork out of her drawer, scooping some out and biting down cautiously.

“Holy  _ fucking  _ shit this is not fixable, what did you  _ do _ ?” She coughed out reflexively into her hand, letting out her first actual laugh of the night when Eddie threw herself over the arm of the couch and screamed into a pillow.

“I don’t  _ know _ Richie! I followed the instructions! It's basically like  _ math and science.  _ I'm good at  _ math and science _ !” 

“And yet I just ate hell casserole.” Eddie threw the pillow she’d screamed into aimlessly near Richie. She dodged it, sitting down and patting Eddie’s head in firm condescending comfort before scooping back up her dinner.

“I ordered pizza if you want some.” Eddie grabbed some gratefully, eating it from a laid down position.

“I feel like you literally always have takeout when I come over how the fuck are you so skinny?” She joked through a mouthful, not noticing how Richie tensed and set down her own slice quickly, letting out an awkward laugh. 

Because that hit a little close to home.

( _ “So Rachel!” _

_ “Oh it's Richie, please.” _

_ “You know I don’t get that, you don’t look enough like a girl as it is, you want people calling you a boy’s name too?” She let out a supremely forced laugh. _

_ “Oh it's just a nickname, everyone has always called me that.” _

_ “Well guess all we can do is hope that one day you’ll wake up and that fat will be in your tits instead of your thighs, eh? Now let's talk about your new special-”) _

“-Richie? Are you even listening to me?” Oh, she’d missed something.

“What? Sorry?”

“Oh! I got  _ officially _ transferred to the LA office!” 

“Hell yeah Eds!” Eddie grinned up at her, not even correcting the offending nickname. God, getting Eddie transferred had been a  _ process _ that had stressed  _ Richie  _ out and she wasn’t even involved.

“I was  _ trying _ to make like an  _ actual _ dinner to celebrate but-” she waved a hand to the counter uselessly and Richie snorted.

“You did a terrible, terrible job.”

“ _ Yes _ .” She resolutely bit into her pizza slice, Richie sliding the box closer to her side. 

“You are officially a free and single Californian!”

“I don’t know whether to be excited or terrified if I’m being honest.”

“Go for excitement, terror is just like… overthought excitement.”

“Oh that cannot be right, like I’m terrified of clowns, are you telling me that’s just my subconscious being thrilled by the most unsettling thing ever.”

“Okay but clowns are scary as fuck, they dont count for this analogy.”

“Fair enough. I don’t know, I guess I’m excited but it's just… weird.”

“But good?”

“Yeah… it's good.” Eddie smiled easily, Richie matching with her own grin.

“You look nice.” Eddie commented after a minute of comfortable silence. She’d forgotten she hadn’t changed after the interview, other than tossing her shoes on a chair she had immediately began drinking the first thing she found, she was grateful, now with Eddie was here, that she hadn’t started with something harder. She had a feeling Eddie wouldn’t have understood or approved of finding Richie absolutely sloshed at 7 at night, and also she tended to speak her mind when she was drunk and that was never good for anyone. 

Honesty rarely worked in Richie Tozier’s favor.

“Oh… thanks, not really but whatever. Had an interview.”

“Oh cool! Was it fun?” Richie couldn't hold back her laughter.

“Oh absolutely not, I hate men. They suck.” Eddie laughed lightly, holding her pizza slice aloft dramatically.

“Cheers to that, bro.” Richie bypassed her slice, she wasn’t really hungry after being reminded of goddamn John Watterson, grabbing the champagne bottle by the neck and clicking it against Eddie’s crust and giggling close lipped through a mouthful when Eddie screamed in disgust at her drinking straight from the bottle.

“Get a  _ glass you heathen _ .” Richie maintained eye contact with Eddie, chugging the remaining champagne without blinking. Eddie’s attempted angry facade was quickly broken by laughter and soon they were both losing it, not really for any apparent reason, but honestly that was the best kind of laughter, pointless and shared with someone you care about.

(And as it often was with Richie and Eddie, even if they couldn’t remember) It was interrupted by Sonia Kaspbrak. 

“Shit my moms calling me again.” Eddie stared at her phone, gripping it white knuckled, voice suddenly small. Her eyes remained fixed on the contact name until it stopped ringing and a missed call notification popped up.

“I assume you still haven’t talked to her yet?” Richie was going for gentle but whether it was her champagne loosened tone or Eddie’s frayed nerves on the subject the other woman’s eyes suddenly flashed angrily.

“You don’t fucking get it Rich she’s not gonna understand and she’ll make me tell her where I am and then she’ll send a SWAT team down to California to take me back to Maine where Myran will be waiting with my fucking wedding dress and I’m not about to do that.” 

“Ok well… that's a lot.”

“Alright so maybe that's dramatic but she’s gonna be pissed and she’ll just guilt trip me into going back. She is  _ never  _ going to understand why I did this.”

“Then block her number? If her calling you gets you this worked up and you know she’ll never change just don’t give her the option of calling you anymore.” Eddie threw her head back defeatedly, tone still laced with anger.

“She’s my  _ mom _ Richie. I’m not gonna block my  _ mom. What _ kind of a child would  _ do that _ ? Would you block your fucking mom, are you that fucking ungrateful?” And if Richie had a better day she wouldn’t have cared about Eddie saying that. If Richie hadn’t just wanted to hug her mom all day she wouldn’t have let Eddie’s blase assumption that she was ungrateful instead of just trying to give advice about Eddie’s obviously shitty mother affect her. But she was on the vaugest level of buzzed and already upset and even if she  _ knew  _ Eddie was going through a lot she couldn’t ignore how her statement made Richie’s throat tighten.

“Well my moms dead. So no. Just trying to help, I’ll go fuck myself I guess.”

“Shit, Rich, I’m sorry…” She trailed off awkwardly and Richie felt her cheeks burn, God why couldn’t she just control her fucking mouth, now Eddie was uncomfortable. 

“I just can’t Richie… I love her and she loves me too, she just… doesn’t know the right way to go about it.” Richie nodded, wishing she had more to drink but right now was not the time to get up and check what she had left in her cabinets.

Their silence was no longer comfortable.

And Richie couldn’t deal with silence. 

“I saw a trailer for an actually awful looking movie yesterday and downloaded it to make fun of it. Wanna watch it with me?” Eddie looked grateful for the distraction, nodding and leaning to grab her plate off the table, Richie started slightly as her half eaten slice was placed in her lap. She took a bite as she turned on the movie.

“What the hell is it even about?”

“Zombies? I think? They sing and they’re teenagers.”

“Oh  _ wonderful.” _

The movie was awful but it broke the awkwardness, Eddie was wrapped around her arm, laughing at her commentary while Richie played with her hair. They were tangled together, in the too tight way of girls who had lay together in a small space before, not that they had, at least in their memory. 

Halfway through Eddie’s phone rang again, she tensed, looking at Richie and muting it with a self satisfied and slightly embarrassed smile.

“I did block Myran.” Richie snorted.

“Well it's a start Eds.” She rolled her eyes and shoved a slice of cold pizza into Richie’s mouth to shut her up. 

But her eyes shone with an unspoken apology, and Richie’s returned the favor.


	8. Eddie Spaghetti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie teaches Eddie to cook, and its nice.   
> Richie realizes something about Eddie, and its less nice.  
> (TW! Internalized/implied Homophobia, some homophobic slurs)

Richie was half asleep when Eddie broke into her apartment (well breaking in was sort of dramatic, Richie had given her a key weeks ago). 

“Jesus  _ christ  _ Eddie give me some warning!” She jolted up from where her head was resting on the arm of the couch, shoving her crooked glasses back into place. She was in the middle of a random Star Trek Next Generation episode, Netflix must have kept playing them while she was passed out and she has no clue what season she’s on (a blurry, childlike part of her knows exactly but it's too vague for her to place, like someone had started to wipe it from her mind and found it too useless to bother).

“What is this  _ garbage _ .” Eddie pauses in her stride, sounding almost offended as she grabbed the remote and shut off the TV.

“Hey! I was watching that!”

“Well then I did you a fucking service by pausing it.”

“Oh  _ God _ don’t tell me you prefer the original series, or we may not be friends anymore.”

“It is  _ so much better _ .”

“It is so much  _ sexism _ !”

“Next Gen is- okay whatever that's not why I’m here!” Eddie waved her hands like she was clearing the air of their banter, Richie slid her head back to its previous placement on the couch arm, chin now resting on the cushioning and eyes trained up to Eddie.

“So why are you here then? Not that I don’t  _ love  _ having your glowing presence light up my apartment and insult my taste in sci-fi.” Eddie rolled her eyes.

“If I need to eat one more take out meal I’m going to  _ scream. _ I need you to teach me how to cook.” Richie propped herself up on her elbows.

“Finally got tired of having a singular thing you're bad at doing yourself?”

“I’m bad at doing a lot of things myself.”

“You genuinely aren’t but okay.”

“I still haven’t sorted out my shit enough to call my mom.” Richie leaned forward and flicked her forehead lightly.

“Literally  _ no one _ is good at emotional stuff that doesn’t count.”

“Okay, but I’m bad at most general home maintenance.”

“Alright that's fair. What do you wanna make?” Eddie presents Richie with a folder of relatively detailed, healthy recipes queued up on her phone. 

“Yeah, Eds, these are way too complicated. You couldn’t make  _ lasagna _ .” Eddie snatched back her phone, cheeks puffed out.

“Yes but you could  _ teach me and _ -”

“Yeah we’re going to start with something easier. We’re making spaghetti.” Eddie looks put out but concedes easily enough when Richie drags herself off the couch, shoving up her sweatshirt sleeves. 

“Okay but I can boil  _ water _ that's basically all there is to it. I want to actually know how to  _ make shit _ .” Richie snorts, giving Bowie an apologetic final pet before washing her hands (she doesn’t always, but she can tell by Eddie’s soft smile that she appreciates it).

“Fine then. Prove me and your crunchy lasagna noodles wrong.” She slams a pot on the stove top and dramatically flourishes her arms towards it. Eddie rolls her eyes so hard Richie thinks it might actually hurt and snatches the pot away, filling it too high with water and turning on the burner, spinning to Richie and bowing sarcastically.

“See I told you.”

“Okay but you immediately fucked up.”

“ _ How _ ?” Richie shoves a jar into her hands, self satisfied grin lazily on her face.

“Salt your water. Literally 101, that's how it doesn’t taste like shit.” Eddie looks like she wants to snap back, sarcastic comments already forming in her mind before she chokes it back and begrudgingly grabs the jar.

“Okay fine. Maybe I need help.” Richie crows victoriously, offering instructions distractedly as she gathers what they need into a disorganized pile on the countertop. 

“Oh my god we do not need all that stuff for  _ spaghetti _ ! Are we  _ making  _ the fucking _ pasta _ ?” The comedian snorts, tossing and catching a tomato before waving it mockingly into her face.

“Yes. Of course! My favorite pasta dough ingredients! Tomato, garlic, oregano, and dry, premade, boxed spaghetti noodles.”

“Shut  _ up _ !” But they’re both laughing.

“We’re making fucking  _ sauce _ dumbass!”

“Yeah I figured it  _ out _ !” Richie hip checks her lightly, handing over the box of pasta and starting to dice the tomatoes on a cutting board. 

She verbally guides Eddie’s hands, helping her make the sauce step by step, sliding genuine compliments in between her gentle teasing. Eddie still shot back, but something was more appreciative in her snark. 

Richie relaxed into the soft, comfortable atmosphere that had filtered through the apartment, chin resting on Eddie’s shoulder as she stirred in the herbs Richie premeasured for her. Eddie scrunched up her nose before adding each one and joked about how she wanted to remeasure because she doubted that Richie knew enough about fractions to do it right. 

“I’m not  _ that stupid _ Ed-  _ oh shit _ !” Eddie spun around watching Richie slide across the tile in her fluffy socks as she ran to turn off the burner and stir the over bubbling pot of pasta.

“Okay! Professional tip! Set a timer!” 

She drained the spaghetti, running a piece under cold water and trying it, presenting a mouthfull of chewed up spaghetti as Eddie sounded in disgust.

“We’re good! Not overcooked!” Eddie relaxed against the counter choking on a laugh as Richie began a silent victory dance.

“ _ Stupid _ .” Richie stuck out grabby hands, shimmying up and down. Eddie shook her head and stammered out protests before giving in with a dramatic sigh. 

“This is so  _ dumb! _ ” She cried as Richie spun her around the kitchen, bending their arms back and forth in a terrible sort of swing dance to no music. But her eyes were gleaming and she was grinning and Richie knew she didn’t actually mind. Eventually they poured the sauce into the spaghetti, Eddie shoving her onto the couch as she scooped servings onto two of Richie’s mismatched plates. 

“Tada!” Richie feigned surprise. 

“Oh my god! Spaghetti! What a surprise!” Eddie settled next to her, punching her shoulder lightly and handing her a fork before tucking into her own portion.

“Shut up asshole, I’m proud of myself.” Richie gave her a genuine grin, swirling it up from her plate and taking a bite.

“You should be! You actually made something edible! More than edible it's actually some top notch Spaghetti, Eddie! Oh my god Eddie Spaghetti!”

“Absolutely not!”

“Oh absolutely  _ yes!”  _ Eddie broke into giggles, shoving in another mouthful to suppress them and leaning against Richie’s shoulder. When Richie looked down at her Eddie’s eyes were glittering, face free of the trepidation that often lined it, smile easy. 

She was beautiful and Richie desperately wanted to kiss her. 

Richie suddenly felt like someone had cut off her air supply. She pulled away, chest tight with realization.

“Richie? Are you okay?” Eddie reached out, placing a hand on her lower arm but she pulled away sharply.

Because Eddie was beautiful. And Richie wanted to  _ kiss her _ . 

Fuck.

_ No. No No **No**. Richie wasn’t a fucking dyke she couldn’t be she  _ **_wasnt_ ** _ No she couldn’t be she couldn’t do that to Eddie! _

_ Eddie. _

_ Eddie would probably be disgusted with her. Eddie, who just got out of a toxic relationship and didn’t need Richie and whatever awful, predatory,  _ **_lesbian_ ** _ thoughts she was having try to take advantage of her. _

_ “Rachel I’m your fucking boyfriend. What are you, a goddamn dyke?” _

_ “Richie, you need to change your look if you don’t want everyone on the planet to think you’re a big old Lesbo okay? I know what I’m talking about but the hawaiian shirts and converse aren’t cutting it.” _

_ “ _ **_Rising Comedian Richie Tozier: Get the inside scoop on her FLIRTING female co stars on new mini series?! - is she someone we want our kids watching?_ ** _ ” _

_ Because she was disgusting. She couldn’t do this. She didn’t want this. _

~~_ Richie Fucking Tozier? Wait. Are you trying to fuck my little cousin? GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE DYKE _ ~~

_ She couldn't be gay. Especially not for Eddie. She didn't want to kiss Eddie. She **didn't**! _

“Richie!” Eddie shook her from her thoughts, she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep the tears burning against her eyelids in. She felt like she was going to throw up.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah… Yeah! I just… feel kind of sick. Sorry.” Eddie’s hand immediately pulled away.

“What? Did I do something wrong with the food? It tastes fine to me, unless, wait did you feel sick before? Oh my god, you literally touched everything. Are you  _ sick _ ? I need to-”

“No! No not like  _ that _ … just like a migraine or something. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna… infect you or anything.” Her voice as she lied was smaller and shakier than she would have liked but she felt Eddie relax beside her. 

“Oh! Oh okay, I have something for that in my apartment let me-”

“It’s fine Eds… Eddie. Can I just… have some space? Sorry.” She blinked damply up to where Eddie had stood on her enthusiasm to get the medicine. She pulled her knees up, resting her chin on them and trying not to flinch at Eddie’s hurt expression. She’d be grateful if she really knew why Richie was kicking her out. 

“Yeah. Yeah of course! I’ll just… pack up the food?”

“Oh… yeah tupperware is in the bottom left cabinet.” She watched her shuffle around, suddenly awkward in their unnatural silence.

“Should I split it? Or-”

“No. It’s fine I’m not gonna eat it.” Eddie shot her a concerned glance before scooping the remaining pasta into the bowl and closing it.

“Okay. Are you sure you’ll be okay? I can come check on you later if you want?”

“No!” Eddie's eyes widened at the outburst and Richie tried to calm herself down, “I mean… thanks but I’ll be fine. I’ll let you know when I feel better.” Eddie looked wary but nodded, holding the tupperware to her chest and going to say something before closing her mouth with a decisive click.

The second Eddie closed the door she stumbled up, staggering around her dog whining at her ankles as if he sensed her distress, and promptly vomited into the sink with a sob.


	9. Fucked up feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie's been ignoring Eddie for weeks. So Eddie calls her mom and then walks in on something she wishes she didn't.  
> Richie's been ignoring Eddie for weeks. So Richie finds the straighest man she can and pretends she's in love.

Eddie doesn’t know what she did wrong but Richie’s been avoiding her. She’s tried everything from calling, to texting, to knocking on her door and she keeps getting ignored. A few weeks ago she would have just let herself into the apartment and asked what was up but she suddenly feels out of place in LA. All of the anxieties surrounding moving to the other end of the country and leaving her fiance she’d managed to low scale work out with Richie’s help coming back full force. 

She’s had spaghetti and microwave dinners for the past 9 nights. She suddenly doesn’t trust food delivery men.

_ ‘Edith I’ll just make something. Do you know the average amount of germs on a stranger's hands? The statistics on how often a delivery person is sick? Do you really want them handling our food? I’m just looking out for you!’ _

She tries to focus on work and it's  _ nice _ , she feels like it should be nice at least, its  _ independence _ she’s supposed to like it. And to an extent she  _ does _ , getting to choose what she eats, and how late she stays up, and her work hours is  _ incredible _ . But she didn’t account for how lonely it was going to be. Having Richie there had helped, but now that Richie was ignoring her she was overwhelmed by how many things could go  _ wrong _ . The silence in her apartment let the tiny Myran and Sonia in her brain take control, and she had gone to the pharmacy and gotten her first inhaler in years. Rationally she knew she didn’t have asthma, that she went to the campus physician her sophomore year of college and got cleared, but still, LA had a lot of pollution, maybe she was  _ getting  _ asthma! She needed to talk to someone, she felt like she was going crazy, a voice in her head that she didn’t recognize telling her to go back to Myran, that all this was stupid and Richie hated her so she should just  _ go back _ . Instead she finally called her mother.

“ _ Edith Kaspbrak what on Earth were you thinking? You can’t take care of yourself, you’re fragile!” _

“Mom, Myran wasn’t good for me. I had to leave!”

_ “NO YOU DIDN’T! Edith-Bear I’m just worried for you! You know that I only want what's best, and living all alone in New York City! Oh my goodness Edith you just want to break my heart don’t you.”  _ Her mother begins to cry, and for the first time Eddie is hit with how similar her blubbering sounds to Myran’s, she writes it off as a coincidence.

“Mommy, I’m sorry! But I’m okay, I can… I can take care of myself.” She hates her hesitation.

_ “Do you know how many women are raped and murdered in their own apartments in New York City Edith? And then no one knows because they lived alone and their bodies rot until someone smells it and they find the corpse weeks later! And no one tells their mothers!” _

“I’m not in New York anymore.” Her mother’s heavy breathing is the only thing she can hear on the other end of the line.

_ “Where are you.” _ She can picture her mother calling Myran, him showing up at her door, teary eyed with the ugly plastic flowers he’d buy her because she’s allergic to pollen, him packing up her bags for her and making her come back to New York. She can’t fucking do that again.

“It doesn’t matter, I’m safe and I’m okay, look mommy I’m not going back.”

_ “But you won’t tell me where you are! Edith you can’t live alone! Come home, not New York, come home to  _ **_me_ ** _ I need to see you! _ ”

“Mommy I love you but I can’t just come to  _ Maine _ -”

_ “You want to break my heart Edith. You want to kill your mother, was I so terrible you want me to die of a broken heart?”  _

“Mommy I-”

_ “Why do you hate me Edith? You can’t live on your own! You need me! You’re going to die, you’re too sickly to-” _

Eddie hangs up before her mother can finish, it takes her a minute to realize she’s crying. And she doesn’t care that Richie is ignoring her, she needs to not be alone right now or she’s going to do something stupid. Like buy a plane ticket and fly to Maine. She grabs her keys to Richie’s apartment and walks upstairs.

Richie doesn’t answer when she knocks, she’d been expecting that, but she’s still shaking so she lets herself in. 

She doesn’t expect to find Richie laying on her couch making out with a man Eddie’s never met. They don’t notice her standing there, keys digging into her palm, until Bowie barks from another room, scratching at the door and they break from their kiss, heads snapping to where she’s standing.

“Eddie?”

She runs out before Richie can say anything else, chest heaving as she stumbles downstairs into her apartment. She leans heavily against her front door, unsure of why her heart is pounding so painfully that it feels like it's going to shatter, and tries not to cry again.

**-**

“Look, Richie, I know you said no more publicity dates but you need some sort of exposure and my friend from college is a pretty big name so-”

“I’ll go on a date with him.” Steve looks stricken, which she supposes is fair, shes usually much whinier about these sort of things.

“Who are you and what did you do with Rachel Tozier?” She lets out a forced laugh to match his own.

“What's his name?”

“Michael Lanhassen, he’s on a big medical drama, goes by Mike.” He snatches her phone and pulls up an Instagram, she studies his face, trying to find any attraction to the obviously handsome man in front of her. She decides he has nice eyes. They’re blue, nothing like Eddie’s, because Richie doesn’t like Eddie. 

“I’m gonna call him Michael.”

“You can call him fucking  _ daddy _ in public for all I care if you’ll actually date him.”

And that's how Richie gets a boyfriend.

Michael “Call me Mike” Lanhassen is a perfectly nice man. Well honestly he is sort of a dick with very few personal space boundaries and a tendency to ogle other women when they’re on dates but he’s  _ fine _ . And Richie likes him, unless she’s thinking about Eddie, so she stops thinking about Eddie and ignores the hole that leaves in her chest.

The media has a field day with a picture of them making out in front of a hotel and her fans blow up her Instagram raving about them being a ‘power couple’.

She deletes a comment claiming  **Damn thought she was a lesbian for sure** .

Michael grabs her ass in public and she pretends to like it, because she’s supposed to, right? No she  _ does  _ like it because Michael is her new handsome boyfriend. It's what she has always wanted! Or at least that the agenda tabloids keep pushing. She doesn’t understand why she isn’t happy.

But online she is happy and after kissing her boyfriend she is happy and she’s a woman in love with a man so she  _ is _ happy. She has to be.

That's how it's supposed to go.

She keeps ignoring Eddie’s calls. Deep down she knows the second she talks to Edith Kaspbrak the delusional facade she’s built up with this three week relationship is going to come apart like wet bread.

She’s finally conceded to taking Michael to her apartment for the first time, he’s been pushing since they met and eventually she decides as he gropes her thigh under the table it's better they do that in her house than in a public restaurant. 

She supposes, in his defense, she’s been pretending it doesn’t make her supremely uncomfortable. She figures she can fake it until she makes it, right? She drives them to her building, ignoring how little she actually wants this man to know where she lives.

“Oh! Dog!” Michael is pushing Bowie off of him from where he’d excitedly jumped up, she rushes over to tug him off.

“Shit, sorry, he gets excited around strangers! Don’t you buddy!” Bowie is grinning sloppily up at them and she can’t help but grin back, he is wagging his tail and looking up at Michael expectantly as Richie scratches him behind his ears. 

“Mmm, you just let him walk around the house?”

“He’s a good boy, don’t worry, he’s all trained and everything.”

“Mhm, I don’t really like dogs… so…” Richie can see him eyeing her apartment in a way that feels like he’s analyzing it, she suddenly feels self conscious. 

“Oh! Sorry I should have.. warned you.” Michael offers her a placating smile and she throws one back before she realizes he’s waiting for her to do something. He looks back down to Bowie for a second and with far more guilt than she’s sure she should be feeling she shuts him in her bedroom.

“So do you want a drink or- mmph!” He cuts her off with a kiss and she stumbles slightly before guiding them to the couch. Honestly part of her is grateful she doesn’t need to make awkward small talk. She’s usually good at flirting but apparently when it's flirting with someone she’s supposed to be dating she’s far too awkward. People online have gushed about her being “tongue-tied” but she knows it's not that cutesy.

So she leans into the kiss and lets it happen, it's easy.

Until Bowie starts barking from her room and she realizes someone is in her  _ house.  _ She blinks, trying to reorient her contacts to make out who.

“Eddie?” Why the fuck is Eddie here? She hasn’t talked to Eddie in weeks! She quickly comes to realize that may be the issue and goes to offer an explanation when Eddie sprints out of the room, slamming Richie’s door behind her.

“Shit.”

“Who in hell was that?” Michael sounds from where he’s kneeling above her, face inches away. She had sort of forgotten he was there. 

“Oh, that's my friend. Shit she looked upset didn’t she. Did she look upset to you?”

“Yeah, maybe, whatever, lets just-” He cups her cheek and leans in but she shoves him off. 

“I need to go check on her.” Michael looks annoyed but sits up.

“Babe I’m sure she’s  _ fine _ -”

“Maybe you should go, I’m gonna go see if she’s okay.” Michael grabs her wrist, light enough that she easily tugs away.

“Are you fucking serious right now?” She doesn’t answer him, just heads out and hopes he gets the message that she isn’t really in the mood and definitely won't be after seeing if Eddie is okay.

“Eddie! Eddie, come on, let me in!” Eddie wont unlock the door, which she assumes is fair because she hasn’t talked to her in weeks, but Jesus Christ can’t she just let Richie  _ in _ ? She eventually gives up, leaning her head against the doorframe.

“Look, I’m sorry, is everything okay?” She steps back as the door unlocks, and Eddie glares at her, teary eyed.

“No everything isn’t fucking okay! Why have you been ignoring me?” 

“I haven’t been-” She tries but Eddie just looks angrier. 

“Yes you fucking have!”

“Okay… okay fine… that's fair. Can we talk about it inside?”

“Don’t wanna go back to fucking your new boyfriend?” She spits and it makes Richie’s stomach twist uncomfortably.

“We weren’t- we… what the fuck does that have to do with anything?” Eddie blinks hard, like she herself isn’t sure why she brought it up before stepping back and waving for Richie to come in with a sigh.

She’d made fun of Eddie for not getting a couch, but sitting on the recliner across from Eddie’s own chair Richie is grateful for the space. Eddie seems to feel the same, scooting as far back as she can and pulling up her knees.

“So, why the fuck have you been avoiding me.”

“I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… it was shitty of me and-”

“That's not an answer Rich.” Richie swallows hard, picking at a throw pillow she’d tugged into her lap. She couldn’t just fucking  _ explain _ ! What was she supposed to say: ‘ _ Hey I realized I have a big lesbian crush on you and want to kiss you and think you are the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen and every time I see you I suddenly question everything I thought I knew about myself’ _ ?

Yeah that’d go well.

“I’ve just been… really stressed with work and Michael wants to spend like all his time with me and I know that's not an excuse but… I’m sorry.”

“You’re right. It is  _ not _ an excuse. I really fucking needed you this week.” The anger drops from her tone into something more like broken exhaustion and Richie feels even guiltier, if that's even possible.

“What… happened?”

“Nothing… really bad I guess, I’ve just felt shitty and I called my mom and she was… she just made me feel  _ awful _ , well that one was my fault but… I don’t know I just  _ needed my best friend Richie _ .” 

And there's a moment, Eddie’s statement resonating through the tension, shooting through both their chests and clicking something into place. Because regardless of Eddie’s anger and Richie hidden feelings it feels like a fact of life- the sky is blue, fire is hot, and Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak are best friends.

“I’m sorry Eds. Really. You don’t need to forgive me right now but-”

“Of course I forgive you, I mean I’m still pissed-”

“But we’re okay?”

“Yeah, we’re okay.” Eddie offers her a smile and her chest feels warm, she ignores how her heart aching, because Eddie’s friendship just feels so  _ right _ she doesn’t know how she let her stupid feeling get in the way in the first place.

“So you called your mom?” Eddie sighs out heavily, rolling her head back.

“Yup! She is  _ not _ happy with me. Apparently I’m going to die if I keep living on my own. I don’t know maybe she's right? I don’t know if I can do this.” Richie leans forward, squeezing her knee and she looks down at her, to Richie’s absolute horror she’s actually crying.

“Eddie I don’t know her, but your mom sounds like a bitch and she’s  _ wrong _ , you’ve been doing so fucking good on your own like  _ christ _ you’re so  _ badass _ !” Eddie lets out a watery self deprecating laugh.

“Richie I can’t even let go of the shit Myran told me, I-”

“Eddie, you left your toxic ex a few months ago, moved across the  _ country _ , got your own apartment, restarted your whole  _ life _ and you don’t think thats  _ badass _ ? Why? Just because you need time to recover from the fucking emotional abuse?”

“It wasn’t  _ abuse _ !” Richie levels her with a look but backs off, she has a feeling arguing with Eddie about whether or not she was in an abusive relationship isn’t going to help.

“My mom… just she always told me I was weak and sick and stuff, and when I went to college I found out a bunch of the stuff she told me was bullshit, but then I feel like as I got older I just kept… getting… breakable again? And my mom and Myran like… protected me? And now that I’m alone… I’m just scared. What if I’m actually sick and I can’t take care of myself?” Eddie’s voice is small and Richie doesn’t know who she hates more in the moment, Eddie’s mother or herself for forcing Eddie to deal with this alone becuase she couldn’t sort out her stupid, disgusting feelings. 

“Well, from what I’ve seen, you’ve been doing a pretty good job of taking care of yourself so far.” Eddie nods hesitantly, clearly not convinced. She let out a startled squawk as Richie surged forward, pulling her into a hug, freezing before relaxing into it.

“So… you have a boyfriend now?” Richie snorts into her shoulder and flops back into her own chair.

“Yeah, Michael, he’s okay. Likes to be called Mike.” Eddie wipes her tears away, wrinkling her nose.

“I’ll stick with Michael.”

“Okay  _ thank you _ , I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels like he’s not a  _ Mike _ .”

“Honestly I don’t know why but I feel like Mike is a girl name.” She states contemplatively, playing with the corners of the pillow she picked up off the floor from where Richie had let it drop when she got up to hug her. 

“Oh yeah like Eddie and Richie are  _ definitely _ girl names.” 

“Oh  _ shut up _ ! That's probably why we think it's a girl's name, because our nicknames are like… normally boy names.”

“I’m pretty sure that's not how that works.” Eddie rolls her eyes and launches the pillow lightly into her face.

“So… he’s a good boyfriend?”

“He’s alright.” Eddie looks unconvinced.

“No really! He’s actually great I promise. Very hot. Good kisser.”

“Wow, thanks I didn’t need to know that.”

“You asked!” Richie laughed out and Eddie joined in. 

**-**

Eventually Richie ends up perched on the arm of Eddie’s chair, the smaller woman wrapped around the comedian's arm and Richie’s legs thrown over her lap. Richie relaxes into their tangled cuddled position, eyes closed and letting the emotions still swirling inside her sink to the back of her mind, she can ignore them and she's fine. She’s Eddie’s best friend and that's e _ nough _ .

Eddie, half asleep, tries to sort through whatever the feelings were that forced her out of Richie’s apartment and made her feel vaguely ill when she thought of Richie having a boyfriend. She can’t make sense of them and she doesn’t like it, so she leans heavily against Richie’s arm and tries to drift off.

_ Eddie dreams about a minivan driving down a street, she’s running after it and someone (glasses, bright shirt, too blurry to make out) is pressing their hand to the back of the glass. It speeds out of view and suddenly she is in an underground clubhouse. The hammock she’s lying in feels too big, too empty, she thinks she’s crying. _

_ Richie dreams about a fence, she’s holding a pocket knife and carving something into the dilapidated wood. Everytime she tries to read what she’s hacking her vision blurs. Faintly in the background there's carnival music, someone is singing that they know her secret. Her Dirty Little Secret. She turns around but there's no one there. When she looks back she can finally make out what she carved.  _

_ R+E _

Neither remember their dreams when they wake up tangled together.


	10. Chris Tommy is a little bitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie goes on tour and Eddie has a realization of her own   
> (TW! Internalized homophobia, implied eating disorder for like a hot sec)

Richie and Michael mutually broke up a week later, or at least that's what the media was saying, of course some tabloids were speculating. 

( **Tozier speaks out! Lanhassen in gay love affair with on screen brother!** / **Is Richie Tozier too ugly for love?** / **Can Medical Drama Star give us a diagnosis to why he got broken up with by Richie Tozier?** / **Richie Tozier is a Lesbian?** )

But the real story was Richie got broken up with and agreed to end the relationship so quickly one could say it was a joint effort. Michael had claimed she spent too much time with Eddie now, even though she’d never mentioned her before, that she acted like she didn’t even want to be dating him. It made her feel… icky even if it was all true. So she started to date Tim Blake. And then when that didn’t work out, Paul Zinzer. And when perfectly nice, lovely Paul sat her down and gently told her he thinks they both know who she’s in love with, and he doesn’t think its fair for either of them to be in this relationship she throws up and has a series of public one night stands until the media stops wondering if she’s a lesbian. Because she's  _ not _ .

She starts to date Chris Tommy, the new heart throb in the music industry, infamous for being a rebel and overwhelmingly Heterosexual. It's perfect.

Except for the fact that Eddie hates him. Which is fair, he gets his bad boy label from somewhere and he very honestly sucks. She thought Michael’s eyes wandered easily but Chris came to her shows and flirted right in the audience as she performed. Eddie called him  _ Christian _ and kept telling Richie about how he checked her out when she introduced them.

He liked to get her drunk. But she liked to get drunk and she wasn’t going to Eddie about it.

Eddie had enough going on. 

Her mom kept calling, and a month ago she had somehow gotten more persistent at finding out where she was and making her come home. She made Richie wash her hands immediately when she entered her apartment and stocked up on hand sanitizer and wrote out her list of allergies in case she ‘forgot’. Richie had hinted she go to a therapist and instead she made an allergist appointment. And found out she wasn’t allergic to anything but a minimal sensitivity to oranges. It had been bad.

Richie had tried to help her through the series of panic attacks that followed, keeping an extra inhaler in her pockets like it was second nature. 

And things were very slowly getting better, Eddie was at least getting more comfortable, taking more risks. She was still paranoid about getting sick and keeping things clean, but that was to be expected, she wasn’t going to get over a lifetime in a few months.

And wanting things clean was not the worst case result from her trauma, even if could be annoying.

“Rachel Margret Tozier what the fuck are your shoes doing on my coffee table I swear to  _ GOD- _ ” Eddie’s cheeks grew red, like she was raring up for a fight and Richie wiggled her socked feet in the air from where she was laying upside down reading a script off her tablet.

“They were uncomfy!”

“They’re fucking  _ gross _ !” 

“ _ You’re _ fucking gross!” Eddie puffed up before falling back in her seat, middle finger raised.

“ _ Well your socks don’t match so… _ ” They lapsed back into comfortable silence until Richie’s phone rang.

“Is it fucking Christian?” Eddie groaned and Richie snorted, flopping upright on the chair and reaching out to reach her phone across the room.

“Hope not, I haven’t talked to him in like a week straight and he hasn’t called, it's a new record.”

“Break up with him? Oh my god standing up would literally be easier.” Richie rolled her eyes, feet hooked on the arm of the chair as she stretched fully off the seat, trying to army crawl to her phone.

“One- the media is having a field day with my newest boyfriend and  _ two _ … fuck its Steve I’m sorry-” She collapsed to the floor, rolling to sit up and answer. Eddie huffed out a sigh, refocusing on the work she’d been ignoring in her lap.

“Yeah it’s actually shit Steve- Mhm…  _ what _ ? Are you serious I thought- oh  _ shit _ okay! Okay! Wait Chris- he said I don’t  _ care _ ? Just… you want me to break up with him? Why? Wait he what?  _ Yeah alright _ . Ok.” Her voice shook slightly, overwhelmed and sort of confused in a way that made Eddie look up again.

“Yeah no I’m fine. No, really. Okay but since when do you care? It's good publicity isn’t it? Oh fucking  _ awesome _ we’re still doing that, even after- oh  _ yay.  _ Okay cool I’ll meet with the trainer tomorrow. Mhm thank- oh. Bye.” She let out an incredulous laugh, falling back flat on the floor and resting her turned off phone on her forehead.

“Everything okay?” 

“Everything is… It’s… what do you want an itemized list of the things that just happened in the past 10 minutes becuase I know you like to make those for chaotic circumstances and that was a fucking chaotic call.” Eddie cocked her head, rolling her hand to tell her to continue.

“Well first of all I’m meeting with my trainer tomorrow! He’s fun… not really but you know. Oh! I’m going on tour! Which is actually kind of exciting but also annoying because my new script is  _ trash _ .”

“Ok well that that's not that bad! That's kind of cool!”

“Oh I forgot to mention why all of this is happening! Chris publicly cheated on me so we’re broken up and I’m getting a lot of public pity for  _ that _ so Steve is hoping to piggyback on it by rushing this new tour. So… yeah...fun!”

“He… what?” Richie’s head snapped up, phone clattering to the floor. Eddie’s voice was icier than she’d heard before, something about her sudden fury (on her behalf) making a part of her chest she thought she’d suppressed feel warm.

“Yeah! But I mean it's fine? He  _ was _ a dick.”

“It's not  _ fine _ ! He cheated on you!”

“Whatever I probably deserved it. I mean you tried to tell me he was looking at other people and like... the lady he cheated with… Zoey Lancaster? She’s like actually pretty and shit. So it's fine. I mean I’m going on tour, don't want to be tied down!” Her tone was flippant as she weakly laughed at her own joke. It made Eddie far more uncomfortable than it should. Because did Richie really think she deserved to be  _ publicly cheated on _ by her boyfriend just because she was oblivious and not pretty? Did she really think she wasn’t  _ pretty _ ?

Eddie felt like her world was tilted off its axis, because she’d known Richie for almost a year and a half at this point and she’d never seen her as… vulnerable. Eddie was supposed to be the broken one, regardless of how much Richie fought that she “wasn’t broken, only justifiably fucked up”. But she was just  _ accepting  _ this shit and Eddie wanted to beat up whoever convinced her that anything like this would be her fault, because Richie deserved the fucking world.

Suddenly Richie’s complaints about uncomfortably short dresses and jokes about skipped meals left a bad taste in her mouth.

She wanted to tell Richie that Christian Tommy was a gross asshole who didn’t deserve her anyway, that she never deserved to be treated like she wasn’t enough, that she was pretty.

But Edith Kaspbrak was a coward.

So they held a mini “fuck Chris Tommy/tour celebration” party and finished the wine in Eddie’s apartment, eventually transferring to Richie’s place once sutibly buzzed to cuddle with Bowie.

And if Eddie pulled Richie just a little closer when they fell asleep on her couch again… well it wasn’t something to think too hard about tonight.

Instead she thought about it 3 months later when Richie was in Vancouver on her tour. 

Which resulted in Eddie having such a bad panic attack she almost called 911, and instead bought plane tickets to Maine.

She cancelled them 20 minutes later when Bowie, who she was puppysitting, laid in her lap. Her inhaler remained within reaching distance until the canister let out  _ chiss-chick _ noise to sound that it was empty so she took a shower so hot it burned and scrubbed her skin raw.

Because Eddie Kaspbrak was in love with Richie Tozier.

And that was  _ wrong _ .

Apparently her mother and Myran were right. She was sick.


	11. A Fake Princess Cut Diamond Engagment Ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone knocks on Eddie's front door and without meaning too inspires her to retake control of her life.

Eddie falls dangerously far back into her old routines, going to work and then immediately home, taking meds she doesn’t need and showering so often her hair is so dried out at the ends it's squeaky. 

She thinks of Richie everytime she’s alone with her thoughts and she copes by turning the water heat as high as possible and scrubbing as hard as she can.

She sort of regrets agreeing to puppysit Bowie (Richie adopted this dog, Richie bought him this collar, Richie chose this food for him), but he’s a good listener when she rants about his owner, about her… horrible, disgusting feelings. She makes Bowie promise not to tell and then feels stupid and way too lonely. 

She has more friends here, or at least more coworkers she can tolerate, she gets lunch most days with a group of women in her department (or she did, she has sort of spiralled backwards and began to bring in her own meals because she knows exactly how they’re prepared and restaurants don’t have that luxury, there is no Richie to tease her that there is absolutely no way someone would sneak orange into her deli sandwich).

She’s just finished refilling her weekly pill container, she’s pissed at herself for getting another one (but this one isn’t overflowing in every compartment like her old one so she guess it could be worse) when someone knocks on her front door.

_ Richie? _

It's clear Bowie has the same thought as he starts barking at the door. She takes a minute, ignoring the fully grown golden retriever wiggling excitedly around her legs, and lets out a shaky breath to steady herself.

It's only Richie. 

Her best friend who doesn’t know that she’s  _ sick _ .

It's  _ Richie _ .

In her nervousness she doesn’t think about how Richie is making her way back through the US and won’t be back for another 2 months.

She doesn’t think about how the distastefully named “Richie Tozier: My boyfriend cheated on me and all I got was this lousy tour” tour is supposed to be stopping in Florida right now.

She opens the door.

“Edith!” Myran envelopes her in an awkward sweaty hug and Eddie is too stunned to shove him off. Bowie growls from behind her, she’s not sure if he’s disappointed it isn’t Richie or he can sense how uncomfortable Eddie is, but either way she appreciates it because it gets Myran to back off.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” He looks affronted and she can see the moment where he takes in her shakingly squared shoulders with surprise.

She wishes selfishly that this was all happening a few weeks earlier when she wasn't falling apart, but she knows deep down that even scared she’s grown since she left Myran. So despite how much she wants to collapse into him and  pretend and just _ let things just be simple again,  _ she steps back and glares up.

“Edith, darling, can I come in?”

“How the fuck did you find me?”

“Your mother called me. Edith I-” But she stops listening, she feels slightly dizzy, when did she tell her mother? She never told her mother where she was. She's sure about that… unless… she’d finally gotten a new phone number. One with a California area code. It wouldn't be hard for Myran, who was uncomfortably good at online stalking to piece things together from there. How could she be so  _ stupid _ ! 

“-So I have something to ask you.” She snaps back to reality.

“What?” Myran takes her confusion as a signal to keep talking and to her absolute horror he drops to one knee, shoving the ring she’d spitefully left on the bathroom counter when she left back into her face.

“Edith Kaspbrak, I still love you and I am willing to look past your mistakes…  _ our _ mistakes and rekindle our relationship. Come home with me Edith, we can fix what you did.”

“What  _ I  _ did? Myran our relationship ending wasn’t my fucking fault.” 

“Edith it doesn’t matter whose fault it is, just let me take care of you! Edith-bear are you really happy out here all alone?” He presses the ring into her hand and she almost drops it, glaring at the princess cut diamond like it's burning her.

“I’m not alone Myran… look I really need to ask you to leave.”

“Edith you need me.”

“No I don’t! I’ve been doing just fine out here taking care of myself. I’m a grown fucking woman.” He leans in too close, trying to grab her face as she pushes away, Bowie barks low in his throat and bites at Myran’s pant leg. Eddie silently thanks the dog and mentally promises him as many treats as he wants later, using the opportunity to shove her ex back.

“You literally followed me to fucking _California_! This is an actually _insane_ thing for a person to do after getting broken up with! Just move on, okay? I did and I don’t need you… and you don’t need me! We’re better apart!”

“Edith you're not making any sense.” He grabs her hand not occupied by the ring he'd forced her to take, she rips away.

“Really? Because I think I’m being really  _ goddamn  _ clear right now.” 

“You aren’t thinking straight. We can still get married, I won’t hold this against you! We love each other.”

“Myran… I’m never going to love you.”

“No, Edith-Bear you don’t mean that. Just come home and we can  _ fix this _ .” She stares at the engagement ring and contemplates how much easier it’d be just to slide it on and leave all of his behind.

She realizes how wrong that feels. 

“I’m gay Myran.” Her chest feels like it's concaving in, it  _ hurts _ , but somehow, saying it aloud for the first time her whole body feels lighter.

“No you’re not.” Her whole body is burning.

“Yes I am. I always have been. I just didn’t let myself believe it. I’m a fucking lesbian Myran.”

“Edith this isn’t funny, making disgusting joke like this isn’t-”

“I’m not joking!”

“Then we’ll get you help! We’ll find you a therapist or a support group so you can get over whatever  _ phase  _ this is, we’ll cure you and then we’ll get married and-”

_ Cure you. _

_ That's what she wants isn’t it? To be cured? _

_ But thinking about it makes her stomach curdle and her mind spin, she thinks about forgetting how she feels about Richie and just going with Myran and she wants to throw up. _

_ Because she's not going to be cured. She doesn’t think she can be. _

_ And fuck Myran for thinking he can just waltz in and write off whatever this is she’s learned about herself like he  _ **_owns her_ ** _. _

_ She doesn’t owe him shit and he doesn’t fucking know her. _

_ He doesn’t know her at all. _

“ _ Get out.” _

“Edith-”

“ _ GET THE FUCK OUT!”  _ She shoves him hard, pounding her fists against his chest as he resists until he’s forced into the hallway, Bowie screams protectively behind her. 

“Edith, baby you will never be happy without me, just-” She slams the door in his tear stained face and locks it.

Her tremors stop suddenly, brain clearer than she expected. Her anger remains, burning clear and hot through her chest.

She soothes Bowie’s upset excitement, calls her superintendent and demands he “never fucking let that bastard up to her apartment ever again”, settling herself into her favorite chair. 

She realizes absently that her engagement ring is still cutting a circle into her palm.

Her composure dissolves and her whole body heaves with sobs.

**-**

One thing to know about Edith Kaspbrak was that she was a wallower, not that it was much her fault, when she was younger she had little else to do after anything bad happened and her mother locked her in her room to “keep her safe”. So it was not anything unexpected that she called off work for a week after Myran’s visit, wrapping herself in a blanket and feeling terribly bad for herself, she shuts down her phone after ignoring the first call from her mother.

She can picture it now: Myran, in hysterics, phoning her mother: “ _ Sonia, oh Sonia, its awful she says she’s a **lesbian**! _ ”

If Eddie didn’t know her mother hasn’t left their small Maine town since she moved there with her father she’d think that any day now she'd open her door to a hysterical Sonia Kaspbrak holding a new prescription and a scheduled appointment for goddamn conversion therapy.

Coming out to her horrible ex-fiance first wasn’t her plan but it overwhelmingly clicked everything she’d be trying to scrub out in the shower and wash out with her daily pills into permanent placement. 

She was gay. And she wasn’t about to get over it.

She was fucking terrified but it didn’t change the fact that she was in love with Richie Tozier and that felt much more  _ right _ than being in love with Myran Jones.

Not that the realization stopped her from wallowing.

But another thing about Edith Kaspbrak was that she was almost entirely fueled by spite.

So on her second day of stewing in her panic and sadness she gets dressed, Myran’s final cry of  _ Edith, baby you will never be happy without me _ ringing in her ears, finds a pawn shop and sells her engagement ring.

She doesn’t get much money for it, more for the band than the very fake diamond, not that she’s surprised, but it's enough.

She uses the money to buy a ticket to a comedy show, one she’s _rather_ convinced Myran would hate the money from his engagement ring going to, and pays out her own pocket to get a pet sitter for Bowie and a seat for her on a plane to Florida.

She’s glad she preemptively took a week off of work in her moping.

**-**

Richie was right, the script for this show is trash. 

Richie looks really goddamn uncomfortable, its clear she's trying to hide it but its not working, at least for Eddie who's had at least a year to get used to her mannerisms.

It takes all of her to not just climb up on stage and wrap Richie in her sweatshirt, especially on the fifth time she pulls down her skirt on a forced joke about Chris Tommy cheating on her with “genuinely a Barbie Doll, guys, I think she’s 90% plastic at this point. I mean I guess someone who looks like a doll is the best he could do, cuz only a woman who is 11 inches tall and  _ inanimate  _ would be impressed by… [she opens her thumb and pointer wide before theatrically closing them until they’re barely an inch apart, apparently most of the audience thinks this is the height of comedy] if you know what I mean!”

There isn't a single scripted line that makes her laugh, the only funny parts are in the delivery or Richie's own improved moments, but to be fair to the writers, Eddie isn’t _really_ listening to the jokes anyway.

**-**

Eddie waits just outside of the stage door, trying and to tamp down her mounting apprehension which floods away the second she sees Richie.

Richie, who’s fake-smiling at fans and holding aloft a sharpie dramatically before signing the t-shirt of an earnest looking man and then more awkwardly taking a photo with another man who looks a bit  _ too _ earnest.

“Could you sign this?” She shoves forward her ticket, voice shaking (she's not sure if it's with giggles or nerves).

“‘Course I can, now who should I… Eddie!” Richie launches herself over the barrier and into a hug, laughing brightly with her first genuine smile of the night. 

“Hey, Rich!” Her trepidation is gone, and Richie shoves her away slightly, holding her an arms length away and examining her like she can’t believe she’s here. 

“Sorry everybody! I’m tapped out for the night, drive safe!” She calls dragging Eddie around the barrier and backstage, stumbling in the stupid boots she’s wearing. 

She doesn’t seem to hear the annoyed grumbles of the (mostly male) crowd, but Eddie does, and some of the things they’re shouting makes her want to break away from Richie’s grip and punch someone. She’s not sure if she’s glad or exceedingly uncomfortable with how good Richie seems to be at blocking them out.

“You’re going to get fucking papped after that, you know, right?”

“Oh that sounds so gross don’t call it that!”

“People call it that!”

“Oh they absolutely don’t!” 

She can do this, she can just be Richie’s best friend and ignore her dumb crush. She’s done it before with boys in high school, probably (But has she? If she really thinks about it she can’t remember ever having a crush on a boy, but she also doesn’t remember much from High School so she’s not sure if its the  _ gay _ thing or that).

“Tozier, why are you back here already? Who the fuck is this?” Richie rolls her eyes and shoves Eddie toward the annoyed looking man in a suit.

“Steve, Eddie, Eddie, Steve. Now  _ Steven _ I’m going to my dressing room with my friend if that's  _ okay _ ?”

“Fine whatever, I’ve got notes for later though.” He pats Richie's stomach with the back of his hand absently as he walks past, Eddie disregards it until she looks at the comedian's face and watches her swallow shakily before schooling her face back into a grin.

“Come on Spaghetti!”

“Well he’s a  dick !” Richie sounds loudly in agreement, dragging Eddie into a small, already slightly cluttered room (It’s distinctly Richie-style messy, she thinks fondly).

“So you came to Florida to…?” She trails off, throwing her arms open as though to let Eddie continue, but Eddie is too busy trying to cover her sudden embarrassment to answer, with dawning horror as she watches Richie's grin widen she realizes she's doing a poor job hiding her flushed stuttering.

“Oh my god was it literally _just_ to see Lil ol’ me? _Eds I’m flattered_!” She flops onto a small couch stationed in the corner with a snort and Eddie shoves her over, flopping next to her with a pout.

“Shut  _ up _ !”

“You know I have shows in _LA_ in a couple months, right?”

“ _ Yes _ , I just… look I had a rough week, don’t be a dick about it!” Richie sobers suddenly, looking at her sharply.

“What happened?” And  _ wow isn’t that a loaded question  _ Eddie thinks, trying to figure which life altering event is simpler to explain: Her ex's reapperence or her sudden sexuality crisis. It's really not much of a contest.

“Myran found me… reproposed.”

“ _ Shit _ . Want me to kill him?”

“ _ What _ ?” She laughs, thrown off guard.

“He  _ sucks _ , I’d kill him for you if you want.”

“I don’t want you to  _ kill him _ , oh my god Rich I can defend myself!” Richie looks confused at that.

“I know! I just figured murder’d be too messy for you.” Something in her instant agreement of Eddie’s capability to protect herself makes butterflies burst uncomfortably and too warm in her abdomen.

“I took the ring and sold it to buy tickets for your show.” She confesses after a minute and Richie  _ cackles _ , “I think it's what he would hate his money going into the most.”

“Oh thats fucking  _ fantastic _ ! I’dve gotten you comp tickets if you asked though you know?”

“I’m aware.” Eddie leans back smugly and Richie flops her head back to look at her.

“You okay?”

“I’m coping.” They lapse into comfortable silence at that and Richie loosley squeezes her hand.

The butterflies flap their wings harder.

After a minute Richie gasps and sits up sharply.

“Wait where is my _son_! Did you leave my _son_ _alone_?” It takes Eddie embarrassingly long to realize she’s talking about Bowie and not about a human child that Eddie was unaware she'd been in charge of, Richie looks absolutley panicked at Eddie's silence.

“...Oh my god who do you think I  _ am _ , of course not! I got a puppysitter.” She placates and Richie lets out a sigh of relief, stretching over Eddie to grab her purse off the vanity.

“ _Christ_ okay, genuinely thank you so much, you're a lifesaver, how much do I owe you for that?” She takes a minute to search for something, eventually she finds what she was looking for and holds the wallet up, shaking it victoriously.

“I got it Rich it's fine, you don’t owe me anything.”

“I’m gonna give you money.”

“You aren't paying me back.”

“That's weird, becuase here I am, paying you back!”

“I’m not taking your money Richie.”

“Then I’m going to need to sneak into your room every night and slide singles in your bras like a stripper until I've fully paid you back.” Eddie lets out an incredulous laugh.

“I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how strippers work  asshole !” Richie leans in close to her face and rolls her eyes, nose scrunched up as she giggles.

_ “Edith, baby you will never be happy without me, just-” _

Eddie surges forward and kisses her.

It’s fast and messy and forceful and her heart pounds so hard it hurts. She pulls back immediately, stumbling off the couch, mind racing too fast to realize  _ Richie was kissing back. _

“Eddie…” Richie starts but she turns, rushing to the door.

“I’m so fucking sorry oh my god I’m so s _ orry  _ I just ruined  _ everything- _ ” Before she can really process whats happening, before she can remember how to  _ breathe _ , Richie grabs her shoulder and spins her around cupping her face and pulling her into another kiss. 

A soft one this time, tinged with a longing that feels as though it has existed far longer than their two years of knowing each other. Richie pulls back first this time, eyes wide and breath shaky. 

“I…  _ shit _ , Eds. I really hope you meant that first kiss or else this is going to be embarrassing.” 

“Shut up.” And they both lean in for the kiss this time, b oth suddenly aware that the other one is panicking just as much as them, it's a comforting solidarity, if not a little sad.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long.” Richie admits after they break apart, hugging herself like she’s scared Eddie is going to scream  _ Sike _ and shove her away. It makes Eddie’s heart ache.

“I… I don’t understand, you dated all those guys-”

“And they all broke up with me because it seemed like I was more interested in someone else.”

“...Me?”

“Yeah  _ dumbass _ .” Richie lets out a watery laugh and Eddie tries not to succumb to the worst case scenarios spinning wildly through her mind, she stares at the unlocked door and her skin crawls.

“Is this going to work?” Richie looks up at her from where she's repositioned herself on the couch, and Eddie is floored by the realization of how far she's willing to leave her comfort zone for this woman.

“I don’t know Eds, you’re braver than me… what do you think?”

“I’m not braver than you!” She grabs Richie’s hands, eyes blazing fiercely, because Eddie isn’t  _ brave _ at all,  _ definitely  _ not more so than  _ Richie. _ Bright, funny, beautiful Richie.

She levels her with a look Eddie can’t make sense of before pulling her into kiss number four, really more of a peck, and resting their forheads together.

“Yeah Eds, you really, really are.”


	12. Eddie's Medicine Cabinet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie knows its not normal to need so many medications, that if Richie knows how sick she really is that she'll leave her. Richie disagrees that she needs so many meds. A medical professional disagrees that Eddie is even sick.  
> (TW! A lot of discussion of unintentional drug addiction, Eddie has a really horrible perception of rehab and drug addicts, implied and stated drug addiction recovery, mentions of death by illness and car crash)

Both mutually decide over FaceTime calls and then in person once Richie comes home that they’re going to keep whatever new thing there is growing between them a secret. They decide that with Richie in the spotlight it wouldn’t be good for the budding relationship to have that much publicity, which is partially true but it isn’t the whole of it (Most of it is the deep rooted internalized homophobia in both women but neither quite realized or wanted to admit it).

Not that they weren’t affectionate behind closed doors, in fact it was between kisses that Richie brought up her impending lease renewal and the bigger apartment she’d be looking at across town, and while they were cuddling later that Eddie broke that she doesn’t think she’s ready for that. Richie isn’t sure if she’s heartbroken or relieved. 

And it works well enough, even if it isn’t ideal. Eddie likes the longer ride from work and home when she visits, it lets her clear her head so she’s at her best when she sees Richie. 

For some reason, since they’ve started dating (not that either has put a label on it quite yet) she’s felt like she needs to hide her biggest flaws, needs to hide them all away in the newfound miles between their apartments before Richie realizes what a mistake she’s making. 

(She doesn’t stop to realize that Richie is doing the same thing. That if she isn’t leaving Richie for the empty bottles shoved at the bottom of her garbage can and the emotions other than happiness shoved at the bottom of her person, Richie won’t leave her for the many pill bottles lining her medicine cabinet shelves).

It works for a while, a plasticy hollywood perception of a honeymoon phase. They kiss more and they talk about real things less. Until Richie starts her period one night when she's over, and without thinking about it Eddie waves her to the bathroom.

“ _ Eddie can you come here please _ ?” Her voice quavers a little as she calls and Eddie is suddenly struck by all the things that could be wrong. What if it wasn’t her period but instead her appendix burst? Myran had read online somewhere that the pain could feel similar if you got bad enough cramps. Or maybe it was something entirely else that was wrong, maybe she’d fallen and hit her head and Eddie just hadn’t heard it, or she was violently sick, or… she was standing in front of her open medicine cabinet holding an orange bottle tightly and looking vaguely ill. 

“Eds what the fuck is this?” Acting on instinct Eddie rips the bottle from her hands and slams the mirror shut, not bothering to make sure she puts it back in its rightful place.

“Why were you in there?”

“I… I was trying to find ibuprofen, figured you’d have it. What  _ is _ all this shit?”

“Nothing don’t worry about it.” Because truthfully she knows it's not nothing, she knows normal people don’t have this many prescription bottles in their bathrooms, but she doesn’t want Richie to know how sick she is, how weak she is.

“Eddie this isn’t  _ nothing,  _ do you take all of these?”

“Richie I said  _ drop it _ , okay?” She snaps and then feels bad when Richie looks stricken.

“Eds…”

“It's  _ fine _ ! And stop calling me that!” They continue what they were watching, some comedy special Richie picked out, they try to resume their curled up position on her big recliner but it's tense and eventually Richie slides to the floor with the excuse of ‘cramps’.

Eddie tries and fails to ignore how tense the room is, but her mind is panicking on overdrive. Richie just doesn’t understand, she needs the meds, she always had. It's not like Richie had known her as a child when she started to take them (not that she really remembered _ever_ starting to take them, they’d just always been in the bags she picked up from the pharmacy each month). 

Richie just doesn’t get it. She’s fine.

(She’s not fine. But Richie  _ can’t _ know she’s broken.)

**-**

They occasionally have dates outside of their respective apartments, not that to the outsider’s perspective they’d look like much more than two friends hanging out. They don’t kiss or cuddle, they barely touch but it's nice, it makes whatever they are feel more tangible. Locking pinkies at the movies or rubbing ankles outside of a smoothie bar after Eddie forced Richie to run with her makes everything feel more like a  _ relationship _ and less like they’re doing something wrong.

It's on one of these dates Richie brings it up again. 

It’d been a nice day, Eddie had always wanted to have a picnic date but Myran never wanted her going to any parks, said her allergies would act up. Her bullshit allergies that didn’t  _ exist _ . Richie had helped her through  _ that  _ disaster, but Eddie wasn’t sure she understood the issue, she seemed to think the lack of allergies would make her “chill out” over her other medical issues, instead it put her more on edge. If she didn’t have allergies everything else wrong with her had to be  _ worse than she thought _ . 

But Richie had taken her on a picnic with foods she knew Eddie liked and a distinct lack of oranges, so there was that. 

They’d just had something akin to a cheese and cracker war (Richie had flicked a balled up babybel wax casing at her and she’d retaliated with half a sleeve of Ritz and things had escalated) and were lying in the broken remains of the battle, Eddie feeling assured enough in the clearing’s emptiness to hesitantly lay her head on Richie’s stomach. Richie was playing with the end of her ponytail and the sun was warm and everything was perfect.

“Eds?”

“Yes asshole?” She liked when Richie laughed when they were laying like this, how she could feel her stomach bounce lightly under her head. The bouncing slows as Richie takes a deep, steadying breath, it sounds too serious for the Richie she knows. 

“Can we talk about all the shit in your cabinet?”

“I… I don’t think there is anything to talk about.”

“Eddie do you take all that?”

“Richie what the fuck do  _ you _ do with medicine?”

“Hey no need to get defensive it was just a lot of shit… I… I’m just worried.” Eddie sits up abruptly, trying to stay calm, becuase Richie doesn’t need to fucking  _ worry _ she was trying to avoid her worrying because worry lead to realizing shit Eddie would like to deal with on her own  _ thank you very much _ .

“I’m not getting defensive! It's none of your goddamn business!”

“ _ I’m not getting defensive _ !” Richie mocks in a poor imitation of her voice and Eddie’s nervous insecurity slowly bubbles to anger, “I’m not looking for a fight you don’t need to be a dick about it.”

“ _ I’m  _ being a dick? I know how to handle myself Richie. I don’t need you to decide what meds I can and can’t take. I’m an adult and I can control my own shit.” She’s too suddenly furious to notice Richie’s surprise.

“Hey I wasn’t trying to  _ control you _ -”

“Then what were you trying to do?”

“Trying to stop you from fucking overdosing or something if you’re taking all that shit you don’t need!”

“Oh yeah, because you just know so much better than me!”

“Eddie I wasn’t fucking saying that!” Eddie storms away and breaks down in her car. Halfway through the drive home she’s calmed down enough to realize that she was Richie’s ride. She pulls out of the intersection and drives as fast as she can without causing a crash. 

The second she started driving she had been a little embarrassed about getting so angry, but as she pulled up to the clearing and saw Richie staring blankly up at the sky, the remainder of the picnic just scattered over the grass as she twisted the balled up blanket in her lap, she just felt like crying. 

Richie doesn’t say anything when she notices her standing shakily, watching, just hugs her so hard it feels like an apology and climbs in the passenger side.

**-**

It's not brought up for a while after that. They’ve fought before and this one is no different, they bounce back quickly, neither mentioning the fight once it's no longer relevant. It's probably not the healthiest way to deal with their problems, neatly packing them away in a box labeled “never discuss again”, but it's much easier than analyzing their relationships flaws when they’re already so nervous about it. 

Richie says I love you after a month of dating, they’re sitting on her balcony and Eddie had just accidently knocked a full pitcher of ice tea on Richie’s lap and promptly fell out of her chair in her panic to catch it. Richie had laughed brightly and helped her up, wheezing the three words so easily, like she hadn’t just made Eddie’s stomach explode with butterflies and her world tilt off its axis in the least romantic scenario possible. 

Eddie is more upset than her when she can’t say it back. 

It's nice to hear it though, what a real I love you without any strings attached sounds like even if everytime she says it Eddie feels a pang of guilt, like she should be returning the favor. Richie makes it clear she doesn’t expect her to say it back, that she just tends to be overwhelming early in relationships, and Eddie has a sinking feeling people have told her that before. 

It makes her want to say it back even more but she just  _ can’t _ .

It's around the 9th ‘I love you’ she can’t return, even though she  _ does love her _ so she doesn’t get the issue and even though Richie swears not to mind, that Eddie realizes with dawning horror she hasn’t had a physical in a year, maybe longer. Not since she’s been in LA. So, absolutely longer.

When she texts Richie in a panic over it her response is “I don’t think I’ve had a physical since I was a kid so ur good do they even do those for adults???” which is horrifying on a whole other level. 

Before she goes Richie texts her that maybe she should “discuss ur meds?”, she leaves her on read.

She isn’t quite sure what to expect, up until she moved in with Myran halfway through college she’d just gone to her childhood pediatrician for a few years too long on breaks and then after she started going to a real doctor that Myran said was a family friend. 

“Quite a lengthy file you have here Miss Kaspbrak!”

“Yes, I just moved here recently so I really hope you have everything?” He laughs at that like she made a joke, tapering off awkwardly at her clear confusion.

“Alright then, I just have a few questions? Can you tell me what medications you’re on?”

“Oh! There should be a list in my file.”

“Yes, Miss Kaspbrak, we have that but sometimes there are… errors? We’ve noticed quite a few discrepancies, I’m sure it's just a glitch but I’d like to clear it up.”

She lists her meds, trying not to panic as the doctor’s placating smile drops to something more concerned and he starts to scribble something furiously on a pad.

“How long have you taken all these?”

“Most of them since I was a kid? The most recent ones I probably started a few years ago? Why, is there something wrong?”

“Edith, you aren’t showing signs of any of the preexisting medical conditions listed in your file.” She feels like she’s been punched in the face, what the fuck did he  _ mean _ , she’d researched for the best doctor in her area thouroughly this guy was supposed to be reliable but he had to be  _ wrong _ .

“Thats… thats impossible, I’m sorry you’re going to need to run your tests again because that makes  _ no sense _ !” To his credit he looks like he feels bad about breaking this news to her, but he also looks a little suspicious which isn’t helping her mounting panic.

“We did, if you remember we reran tests several times, you have nothing medically wrong with you.” Eddie didn’t remember, her doctors appointments always tended to be this long.

“What the hell are you saying? I’ve been  _ wrong _ my whole life?”

“To put it bluntly Miss Kaspbrak, yes. Look, there is patient doctor confidentiality, if you made up the things on your file to get medication I’m not going to judge you, but I need to know about it so we can help you.”

“I’m not a  _ drug addict _ !” She drops her tone to a worried hiss, not wanting anyone outside to hear her, he didn’t look convinced and Eddie wanted to  _ scream _ . She wasn’t some  _ crack house disgusting addict!  _ She worked in finances! She had a bad immune system and underlying medical issues and she always  _ had _ !

“Medically the only issue is you have been pumping yourself full of medication you don’t need everyday for years. I’m  _ shocked _ none of your previous doctors noticed it!” She thinks back on Myran’s “family friend” doctor, how her mother used to get coffee with her pediatrician and feels  _ ill _ . “Now there are some rehab programs to help you wean yourself off-”

“I’m not going to  _ rehab _ !” 

“There isn’t anything shameful in going to rehab Miss Kaspbrak. Recovery isn’t  _ anything _ to be ashamed of.”

She leaves after a bit, informing the doctor she can  _ handle it thank you _ and tries to quit cold turkey.

She knows it's a bad idea. She knows there are programs and people who can help her but she’s angry and scared and embarrassed and she can do it herself. 

She can’t though. It’s horrible and the withdrawals are making it impossible to function and after the 3rd day of her ignoring Richie’s calls she drives over anyway.

“Eds what… are you okay?”

Eddie wants to  _ cry _ because this is possibly the worst thing to drag into a few month old, already fragile relationship. Because Richie is going to see how messed up she is and leave her for someone fully functional and she is going to deserve it.

But Richie doesn’t leave, instead she holds back her hair as she pukes in the toilet and then drives her to the doctor despite her protests and they figure it out together.

She still refuses to go to rehab, she doesn’t  _ need rehab _ . She tries to argue when Richie takes off as much work as she can to stay with her and help her through the carefully setup program to wean her off healthily but Richie stands her ground. Eddie has to admit it's nice to have someone hold her and distract her from how horrible everything is. It's a long, difficult, sometimes gross process, but Richie being there makes it better even if Eddie can’t comprehend  _ why _ she’s staying. 

**-**

“Okay, so you’re a superhero-”

“I’d be a cool antihero but continue.” Eddie actually screams at that before bursting into laughter.

“ _ What _ ?”

“Okay, okay detour question. Not my real question. Describe what you think you’d be as a hero.” She’s grinning expectantly as Richie puffs up like she’s thought about it before.

“Okay. So I’d have super cool powers like… I don’t know ice or some shit or I’d be like deadpool and I’d be that Antihero who defends justice by any means necessary and curses and is dope as hell and the superhero and villain both hire me and I double cross the villain and the hero falls in love with me. Okay stop  _ laughing _ !” But Eddie is actually crying from how hard her laughter shakes her body.

“You would be none of those things, oh my  _ god what the fuck! Do you think that you’re that cool?! _ ”

“Okay  _ asshole _ just ask your real question.” Richie huffs, put out and sulky. Eddie pets her head apologetically (if not condescendingly).

“Alright, alright so you are like the lame comedic sidekick superhero you were meant to be-” 

“Okay  _ fuck you _ .”

“Shhh I’m asking my question. So you have a villian who has kidnapped me and Bowie-”

“ _ NO!” _

“Yes! So you can only save one of us. Who do you save?” Richie hums, putting on a production of rubbing her chin but there is clear conflict in her eyes. Eddie slams a pillow into her stomach. “ _ RICHIE! _ ” 

“Okay! Okay! You! Obviously I’d save you! I would  _ try very hard _ to save both but if I had to choose I’d save you.”

“ _ Okay _ you had me worried for a second there.” Richie snorts and presses a kiss to her cheek.

“My turn! In your boring, boring job-”

“I hate you.”

“What is the most insane thing that has ever happened?” Eddie lets out a sharp laugh after a minute and Richie excitedly turns to face her.

“Alright so one time the fire alarm went off, we all had to evacuate, and it turned out a temp had pulled it to empty the office so he could have sex with another temp in the break room without anyone inturrupting them. The fire marshall told all of us  _ immediately _ .”

“Oh you have  _ got to be fucking with me _ !”

“No! It was so gross! He was so stupid and I literally never went into the break room again!”

“That is horrible.”

“I  _ know _ ! I mean honestly it was the only interesting thing that happened there.”

“Yeah that makes sense.”

“You suck. So much. God, okay what was… your childhood best friend's name?” Richie’s laughter slows, her cheeks puffed out like she’s thinking too hard about it.

“I… I mean I don’t really remember any of my like  _ childhood  _ friend’s  _ names _ because I was a kid so who remembers shit like that. I had  _ very few friends _ when I moved at like 17 becuase I was annoying but I mean there was this kid Ethan who played Danny when the drama department did Grease who I hung out with a lot when we had rehearsal? Does that count?”

“Oh my god were you in  _ Grease, who _ were you in Grease?” Richie flushes as Eddie shakes her shoulders expectantly. 

“Okay I was Sandy but it was a  _ mistake _ -” Eddie is cackling too hard to hear her.

“ _ WHAT? _ And you’ve never  _ MENTIONED THIS? _ ”

“Shut up shut up shut up!” 

The game keeps going, until it's late and their arms are wound around each other and their questions actually start to mean things. The question game had been Richie’s idea, something to pass the time and help them fill in gaps of missing useless information about each other. Neither had expected how vulnerable it was going to become.

“What is your favorite memory with your dad?” Richie asks softly and Eddie presses her head against her chest, breathing out slowly.

“I don’t remember that much about him, but we used to go on these trips to his parents old lake house in Connecticut, we stopped after I turned 5 and he… got sick but they are pretty much my only clear memories of him? He used to take me and swing me in the water by my ankles off the dock, it was like totally safe and fun but it freaked my mom out  _ so much _ ! He’d do it because I was always scared to go in the water at first, and he’d swim with me for  _ hours _ after I took the initial plunge because I  _ never  _ wanted to get out. My mom was… better then, when he was alive, and she would be waiting inside with towels and had the fireplace going and he’d convince her to play a board game with us and it was… it was just the best place in the world.” Richie just kisses her hair, “Okay, why’d you move your senior year?”

“Yeesh that one is kinda a bummer. My dad got in a car crash my sophomore year… it was  _ awful _ and he… he didn’t make it. My mom didn’t win the lawsuit against the other driver. I can’t remember  _ why _ because the other person was drunk driving so it shouldn’t have been  _ much of a case _ . We were never  _ rich _ but without my dad and without anything from the lawsuit things got super bad money-wise for a year, my mom was super fucked up from my dad and she was trying really hard but eventually we had to move in with my aunt. It sucked but I honestly think I repressed most of the shit that happened that one year before we moved, I can’t remember a lot of it. I think it just made me repress my  _ dad _ as a person, I don’t really remember much about him other than what my mom told me.  _ Anyway _ this game was supposed to distract you not dump all my sad shit on you. Sorry.” Her voice, which had gotten dangerously thick as she spoke, suddenly snapped back to its normal teasing and Eddie leaves a soft kiss on her collarbone before resting her chin on her shoulder, rubbing what she hopes are comforting circles on her arm with her thumb.

“It’s okay Rich, I asked the question and you’re allowed to have  _ emotions _ .”

“I have emotions all the time!”

“ _ Mhm _ .” Richie curls closer against her.

“ _ Fuck _ its late, are you tired? Because I’m not going to lie to you I am absurdly comfortable but also very awake.” Eddie sighs in agreement, trying not to show her concern at the clear subject change, shifting so she is propped up on one arm despite Richie’s vocal protest at the sudden lack of contact even though their legs are still tangled together.

“Wanna know what would definitely distract me and make me super happy and entertain us while we can’t sleep?”

“What?”

“A home video I’m hoping you have of your senior year production of Grease where you played Sandy.” She can barely get through it without laughing and Richie lets out a deeply guttural groan before twisting half off the bed to grab her laptop, “Oh  _ hell yes _ .”

“This is horrible Eddie. I hate this.”

“Oh shut up and find it I’m so  _ excited! _ ”

They watch the poor quality video of Richie’s surprisingly good performance (“I minored in acting!”) and Eddie is thoroughly entertained by Richie’s embarrassment and commentary (“The girl who played Patty fucking hated me becuase I got a lead when I was new”) and is very vocal on her opnion that Richie should bring back the big circular wire framed glasses she wears until the last scene and the soft pastel sweater look. Richie is pouty she seems to like that more than the tight black catsuit she had in the finale but Eddie defends herself that “I’m allowed to think 17 year old you is adorable but it's really weird if I think 17 year old you is  _ hot _ !” 

It's the nicest night Eddie’s had in a while.

But she can’t place exactly why teenage Richie feels quite so personally, achingly familiar. 

**-**

The process is horribly slow, but it ends, even though it feels for so long, as months turn into a year and a year stretches longer, as if she will never recover. 

She does. She is capable and so very strong and she gets past it.

She starts going to therapy (she argues she doesn’t need it, but after a few horribly soul-bearing, emotional sessions she has to admit defeat, it's helping.)

And once she’s clean, once she has worked on herself enough to actually acknowledge her trauma, once she is happier and healthier than she’s ever been she tells Richie she loves her.

And it feels right. It feels like forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if I should change anything I know it is a very sensitive topic!


	13. Steve Covall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie is sad, Eddie is worried, and Steve Covall SUCKS SO MUCH  
> (TW! A lot of sexism and homophobia/homophobic slurs, implied/referenced eating disorder)

“ _ You can do this baby, I know you can. _ ”

“Yeah… yeah I fucking can.” Eddie snorts on the other end of the line and shouts something away from the phone at Bowie, the familiarity makes something warm unfurl in Richie’s stomach, loosening the tension in her shoulders.

“ _ And regardless of how it goes _ ,” Richie whines at that and Eddie backpedals quickly, “ _ even though nothing is going to go wrong because you are perfect and your new jokes are actually very funny, I’ll be home waiting for you and we can do whatever you want to celebrate.” _

“ _ Whatever _ I want?” Richie trails suggestively and Eddie groans in false disgust.

“ _ God you suck, okay, good luck, I’m proud of you! _ ” And Eddie hangs up. 

Richie is faced with the silent choice of whether she’s going to walk into Steve’s office and tell him she wants to write her own stuff or if she is going to go home and tell Eddie, brave, strong Eddie who changed her whole life, moved across country, and got over forced addiction a little under a year ago, that she is too much of a coward to tell her manager she wants to redirect her career.

She knows Eddie wouldn’t openly judge her for it but even so she is done with her disgusting sets and male-gaze directed life, she wants Eddie to be proud of her more often.

So she walks into Steve’s office without knocking and spins herself into one of his uncomfortable rolling chairs.

“Hey? Not that I don’t  _ love _ seeing your ugly mug unexpectedly, but what are you doing here Tozier?”

“I wanna talk about something important. Like right now.”

“You didn’t schedule a meeting for it?”

“Oh no! I must have forgotten that you are so very busy with all of your  _ other  _ successful clients!” He flips her off and leans back in his chair.

“ _ Fine, _ I have some time. What is it?”

“Okay so I’ve been really fucking unhappy with my shows for a while now, and basically I want to redirect my comedy. Not all at once obviously, it’s going to take some time but I started writing some stuff and I think if we-” Steve holds up a hand in her face and starts laughing so hard the desk shakes.

“Jesus fucking christ Richie. Yeah that's not happening.”

“ _ Fucking why? _ You haven’t even heard the shit I wrote!” He scoffs, snatching the notepad she’d been gesturing with angrily. He flips through it, eyebrows raised, and Richie can feel her immediate anger sink into the long held insecurity no one was quite so good at unearthing as Steven Covall.

“This is fucking garbage.”

“What the fuck do you mean?” He levels her with a condescendingly blank stare.

“Your demographic doesn’t want this shit, they’re coming to see you talk about sucking dicks and making fun of other women and guys who aren’t them. We’ve tested it and  _ that _ is what sells to the people we want watching.”

“Well maybe I want a new demographic! Steve, the shit I’m doing now isn’t why I went into comedy! I want to write my own jokes and talk about real things!” Steve rolls his eyes and tosses the pad loosley in her direction so she has to scramble to catch it.

“Rachel. I’m going to level with you. No one is going to fucking watch you talk about  _ real issues _ or try to be funny. It wasn’t until we got ghost writers that anyone worthwhile started showing up to watch, because you  _ aren’t _ funny. I didn’t hire you to be funny, I hired you to be pretty enough that men would tune in to jack off to you and then maybe stick around to listen once we got you good material. And you are barely holding on enough to do  _ that _ , you’re getting up there in years-”

“I’m 29-”

“Exactly. You’re getting fat and there are still way too many dyke allegations surrounding you,” Richie  _ flinches _ and Steve’s lip curls into a smirk, Richie knows he has his suspicions about her and Eddie, Richie knows there was a real threat behind his jokes that if ‘she had a lesbo wedding he’s gonna need to drop her’, “The only thing consistently getting you audiences is the writing team’s jokes. So either try out what you did our first few years together or get some plastic surgery and then we can discuss with a  _ team  _ that can filter out  _ that trash _ -” He waves a hand at the notebook crumpling slightly in her clamped hands “and you can try writing something. Okay? Is that everything?” 

“Yeah, good _fucking_ _talk_ Steve.” She bites before storming out, trying to hide how she’s shaking.

She wants to throw up.

She’s not sure if it's due to her tendency to do so when she’s emotional or the fact that she suddenly feels like she’s 20 and trying to pay her mother’s medical bills and desperate to do whatever Steve says because he’s giving her a  _ chance _ . She’s only 20 and she’s so very alone and if she listens to him he can get people to  _ like her _ , if she wears what he says and gets contact lenses and if she pukes away enough of her calories she might not be so very alone anymore.

But she’s not alone anymore. She has  _ Eddie _ . Eddie who was brave and who finally moved in with her two months ago. Eddie who Steve knows about even if Richie did her goddamn best to hide their real relationship. Because Eddie had years of trauma surrounding it and Richie is a coward.

But with her head clouding with Steve’s words it's hard to think about Eddie FaceTiming her in the middle of a meeting to ask whether she should get orange or teal hand towels for their apartment because ‘ _ It's important Richie!’ _ , Eddie grumpily dragging her to bed after staying up all night waiting for her to get home from a show and curling around her, pressing sleepy kisses to her cheeks until she falls asleep, Eddie confessing shamefaced a few weeks ago she’s still not ready to go public with their relationship and collapsing in her arms in relief when Richie agrees wholeheartedly.

She is sure she should call her girlfriend to come pick her up or get an Uber or  _ something _ with how shaky she is and how much she feels like she’s either going to puke or cry every other second. But the drive is good, it gives her time to think. Driving doesn’t clear her head and solve all her problems like it does for her girlfriend, but it's a good half an hour of private silence to make a game plan.

Eddie has had a shitty life and a particularly difficult year. So Richie isn’t going to bother her with precisely all the shit Steve said. Not that she doesn’t think she’ll be understanding, or can’t handle it, she absolutely can, it's just… Eddie doesn’t deserve to have all that dumped on her, she is finally healing and she deserves someone  _ happy  _ and  _ whole _ . 

She tries to figure out what her next step is with Steve but it makes her feel queasy enough that she’s dizzy.

Part of her wants to just fold, lose weight the fastest way she knows how and hope Steve was genuine in his theoretical promise, but Eddie thinks it's gross when she  _ involuntarily _ pukes and she really doesn’t want to go back to where she was when she first started out. She won’t let Steve have the satisfaction.

“Hey buddy!” She chuckles weakly, buckling her knees easily to let Bowie tackle her to the ground when she walks into their apartment. Eddie skids into the entrance way, still in her pajamas with her eyebrows raised expectantly.

“Hi! You’re home early is that a... good thing? Because I got champagne if it's a good thing.” Richie wants to cry, just break down and let herself be held, but she can’t be a big mopey baby over nothing or she’d just worry Eddie for something that isn’t a big deal. She just shakes her head before she can say something stupid.

“Oh  _ Rich _ , I’m so sorry…” Eddie is suddenly dragging her off the floor into a tight hug and making it  _ even harder  _ for her not to cry, “he’s such a  _ bastard, _ I’ll beat him up!” That gets an unexpected laugh from Richie who relaxes in the hold for a minute before Eddie is pulling back enough to look at her. She can see her scrutinizing her expression so she offers as much of a smile as she can muster, “Can we still drink the champagne, just a fun, sad champagne treat?” Eddie snorts, pulling her into a light kiss and shepherding her into the living room.

“I got something harder in case this happened.”

“Have I ever told you how much I love you?”

That night Richie swallows back her bile and only eats half the take out Eddie orders. If Eddie notices she doesn’t say anything.

She holds herself back from crying until Eddie is in the shower and pretends to be asleep when her girlfriend finally crawls into bed, but based on how tightly she cuddles against her she isn’t sure if she was quiet enough.

**-**

Eddie is worried. 

Richie is acting  _ weird _ . 

Eddie isn’t used to initiating as much of their contact as she has recently, that was usually Richie’s _whole_ _thing._ “Spaghetti, touch is my _love language_! Let me _love you!_ ” She’d cried dramatically just last week, making grabby hands as she chased Eddie through the apartment, covered in soup she’d been making and subsequently dropped all over the kitchen and herself, eventually she had cornered Eddie and squished her into a warm, soggy hug as she screamed and laughed and tried desperately to shove her off. 

But that had been last week and this week Richie was acting bizarrely shy and spending too long getting ready in the morning and actually shutting up when Eddie told her to and she  _ hated _ it.

But she had a plan. A plan she stole from a movie because her past dating experience had really fucked with her personal creativity but gave her quite a bit of time to live vicariously through Hallmark channel christmas films her mother loved and Myran said were “acceptable viewing material”.

So it was cheesy and stupid and Eddie felt dumb all dressed up and pulling out Richie’s record player she never used, but Richie, the sappy bastard, would probably love it.

And hopefully Eddie could get her to talk about whatever was bothering her where previously Richie had just waved her off and redirected the conversation. 

She’d even bought Bowie a bow tie because she hoped if anything the dumb pun mixed with her girlfriend’s dog would at least get a genuine laugh out of her. She missed Richie’s real laugh, for the past week she’d been giving Eddie some weak imitation, distracted and small.

Richie wasn’t supposed to  _ be _ small, she was big bright colors, and vibrant smiles. But she’d felt muted ever since the too short meeting with Steve she hadn’t delved into more than to say he thought her jokes were stupid and she wouldn’t be changing her material anytime soon. 

She had heard her crying that night, she’d been loud and Eddie may or may not have been listening at the door for a bit before she got into the shower. 

She wasn’t sure if it upset or angered her that Richie didn’t feel as though she could come to her with this shit when she had seen her at her absolute lowest, but she focused on the upset. Eddie had a tendency to let her anger overwhelm her if she thought too hard over it, if she was sad at least she could find a solution. Her therapist had been helping with that.

“ _ Eds? Why are the lights dimmed? Are you home? _ ” There was the telltale delighted gasp that Bowie had greeted her followed by a reverent “ _ Holy shit its a Bowie tie!” _ as the nail clicks on hardwood and soft socked footfalls drifted closer to the living room.

“Eddie are you-  _ oh!  _ Hello!” And she suddenly felt self conscious in one of her only dresses (she’d bought it solely because her first thought seeing it was how angry it would piss off Myran to see her in it and when she put it on it felt cool and sexy and all those things she hadn’t been allowed to feel before), soft oldies crooning from the record player, and apartment lit with their confusing scented assortment of three wick candles that had been on sale last time they’d been at a mall.

But Richie was grinning dopily wide eyed at her and she shoved the embarrassment aside, grabbing Richie’s hands and pulling her with a twirl.

“Hi, how was your day?” 

“Well it's fucking better now.” Richie relaxes against her chest, letting her take the over swaying, she sounds tired in the way she has the past few days, Eddie holds her tighter, “I feel underdressed.”

“You are, it's very rude.” She teases, smoothing the shoulders of her jean jacket before poking her nose. They sway for a bit, just basking in having each other close, Eddie sloppily turning and dipping her when the music swells just to make her smile. Really smile. 

“Not that I’m not thoroughly enjoying this, but  _ why _ ?” 

“I missed you asshole.”

“I haven’t been anywhere?” She spins Eddie this time, with a laugh that is at least a little more comfortable then her previous false ones, even if it's confused.

“Yeah, you have. What's been going on?”

“Nothing’s been going on, I mean Bowie got a cool new tie, which is rather groundbreaking if you didn’t already know but-” Her plasticy fake smile slots so easily into place it makes her stomach turn a little.

“ _ Richie _ , I  _ know  _ something is bothering you.”

“Eds… I just..  _ I love this fucking song _ !” 

“No! Stop deflecting! That's not how this works!” Richie just snorts and drags her arms out straight in front of her, swinging their still clasped hands to the music.

“Spaghetti, my love, I’m  _ fine _ !” Eddie stiffens, breathing in and out slowly for a second to ground herself and spinning Richie under her arm to the beat. She could wait this out, Richie was clearly not going to talk about it and she knew that if she pushed her girlfriend would just clam up entirely. 

Richie, apparently satisfied, suddenly sucks in a breath and skitters away, carefully plucking a vinyl from its disorganized crate (Eddie has no clue how she finds any of them, but Richie is some sort of an expert on the madness) and putting it on the player.

The record scratches to life, Richie doing what is absolutely an improvised partnerless swing dance, it's surprisingly skilled despite not going with the music and despite herself Eddie feels the anxious tension that was driving her mission loosen slightly.

“ _ Eddie my love! I love you so- _ ”

“No.”

“Yes!  _ How I've waited for you, you'll never know! _ ” She reels her in with an imaginary fishing hook, which truly impacts her masterful charleston. Eddie, cheeks burning, rolls her eyes but accommodatingly complies to Richie’s clear delight. 

It's silly and overwhelmingly  _ Richie  _ in a way that suddenly has Eddie doubting her worry, maybe she’s being ridiculous and everything is actually  _ fine _ .

Something akin to shame washes over her, feeling almost like she’s relapsed back into her irrational paranoia that something would always be wrong, it's something she’d been trying to work through, but Richie was joking around like normal and not bothering to adjust her clothes in the almost neurotic way she had been all week as she whirled around her.

“ _ Stupid _ .” Eddie snorts as the other woman teasingly chicken-bobs her head around, teasing was how they worked and she knew Richie knew that. So when her absent minded quip is met with an almost undetectable flinch and Richie begins to shrink back to where she’d been earlier Eddie feels selfishly vindicated.

When they stop dancing and sit down in the dimly lit corner with the least clashing scented candles (becuase as Richie said “we can’t ruin the ambiance for something as stupid as  _ naseua _ ”) and Eddie notices Richie has just cut up and poked around half her serving of spaghetti when she declares herself stuffed and throws it away, Eddie’s vindication suddenly feels a lot more like dread.

Richie plops back on their couch, playing with the velvety edges of Eddie’s sleeve, leaning closer of her own accord than she has in a while (which she counts at least as a minimal win despite her mounting discomfort).

“Thank you for doing all this, you didn’t need to.” She mumbles softly, kissing the tip of Eddie’s nose, it should be sweet but Eddie just feels ill. 

Richie had no reason to say that Eddie didn’t need to plan a nice date night when she’d clearly had a terrible week.

Richie had no reason to throw away half her plate and make herself smaller and spend extra time in the mornings to dress up in clothes Eddie  _ knew  _ she hated and seemingly avoid mirrors unless it was to stare haplessly into them, examining herself up and down with her eyebrows scrunched up.

But she had been ever since Steve had turned her ideas down.

Fucking Steve who Eddie hated and Richie claimed wasn’t too bad becuase he’d done a shit ton for her.

Richie hadn’t delved into exactly what Steve had said, but Eddie had overheard his blunt, nasty jokes during calls or backstage at shows and suddenly things were clicking into place like everything was a big horrible puzzle and Eddie had finally found all the edge pieces.

( _“Stop being such a_ _ baby, it's your fault for letting your holes close! Were you this much of a baby when you were a teenager?” Eddie was squeezing her hand despite how intensely her eyes were rolling at Richie’s squirming. _

_ “I’ve never had my ears pierced!” _

_ “Yes you have! It was in… it was in someone's basement? You had a boy do it I think and it for sure should have gotten infected but it didn’t! You’re wearing dumb earrings in your 9th grade school photo you made the mistake of showing me.” _

_ “Oh  shit  yeah! I forgot about that! When did I tell you about that?” Eddie stilled, nose wrinkling in the way they often did when she was trying to remember something childhood related for either of them. _

_ “God I don’t know!” _

_ “I’m surprised you're not more worried about these getting infected.” Eddie scoffed _

_ “Well this time it’s a professional that I thoroughly researched not a teenage boy in a  basement,  and I already set an alarm on my phone to remind you to keep it clean.” _

_ “Of course you have,” Richie was teasing but her voice was fond, “Anyway I don’t even  want them pierced!” _

_ “Yeah, no, dick move on Steve’s part.” _

_ “Eh,” She waves the hand not tightly grasping Eddie’s dismissively, “not the most major body modification he’s forced me to make.” _

_ “Rich how do you not understand why this concerns me.” _

_ “Shut  up!  _ _body modification is a small price to pay for a bad Netflix special.” Eddie laughs along and swallows back her concern at Richie’s flippancy._ )

( _It’s a stupid argument, barely an argument really, there is no actually upset over the terrible couple’s game show they’re watching at 2 AM becuase Eddie can’t sleep and Richie is far too happy to fuck over her own sleep schedule._

_ “I would absolutely be the one who  most often sweeps the other off their feet ,” Richie defends in a bad impression of the host’s cheesy transatlantic esque accent. _

_ “Oh  really ?” _

_ “Yuhuh! Not even romantically but just, like, generally. You’re a foot tall. I could pick you up so easily. You are so tiny. Tiny liddol….small person.” Eddie can tell she’s tired but trying to pretend she isn’t, using stupid voices to poorly disguise her lack of lucidiy. Her terrible russian accent she’d been slipping into randomly all night “to fucking perfect it, Edith” was doing little to hide her sleepy rambling as she pokes at her nose. _

_ “Okay but I could also pick you up so… your argument? Fucking invalid bitch.”  _

_ “Nooo my fat ass? You could  not! ” _

_ “Oh  please _ _!” Eddie snorted_ (she had thought it was a joke but now she doesn’t think it's a joke and it scares her) _and hopped up in front of her, arms extended, “Get up get up get up!” When Richie just flops her head in her girlfriends direction and blinks slowly._

_ “No. I’m  comfy .” Eddie drags her up anyway, rambling nonsense to shut up Richie’s whining. She bends quickly, cupping under her knees and scooping her up quickly, stumbling for a second at the sudden imbalance before straightening her stance. _

_ “Woah holy shit babe you’re so  strong ! Oh my god, oh my god you win!” Her cheeks are flushed pinks as she buries her face into the crook of Eddie’s neck. _

_ “That was honestly easier than expected. You’re just like… long and scrawny. A human noodle.” _

_ “ Rude ! If you were going to lie why would you be  mean? _ _You’re like the opposite of Steve, you are like… nice mean. Have I ever told you that you’re nice mean?” Eddie, sleep deprived herself but not actively sleepy just huffed a laugh and pressed kiss Richie’s hair before flopping back onto couch, letting her girlfriend fall asleep in her lap as she played with her hair and eventually drifted off herself to Richie’s heavy breathing and the looping reruns of the game show._ )

( _“Steve, I told you I’m not doing anymore publicity dates. Stop bringing your famous “friends” over to try and fuck me so you can publically announce it.”_

_ “Well Rachel what do you want me to do? I can call up that dyke from the new CW drama who just came out? Would that be better for you?” Eddie recoils away from the door she’s pressed her ear against at the mocking venom dripping from Steve’s words, like his offer is a thinly veiled threat. _

_ “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” _

_ “When ugly girls suddenly stop publicly dating every man they see and suddenly have a new bestest friend girl roomate out of fucking nowhere tabloids start to speculate. I don’t know about you but I don’t think ‘Trashmouth Tozier: Carpetmuncher’ will sell many tickets, do you?” Richie hisses out a weak  “Fuck you” but doesn’t argue. In fact she’s concerningly silent for a woman Eddie has never heard be quiet for longer than 20 minutes even when she’s sleeping (she tends to sleep talk and breathe heavy and do these stupidly little almost-sneezes that shouldn’t be as endearing as they are).  _

_ “Have I ever misled you Richie?” _

_ “You absolutely have. I’m not fake dating anyone else for you.” Eddie can’t help but notice how her voice wavers, imperceptible to anyone who doesn’t know her well. But Eddie does and it makes her uncomfortable. _

_ “Whatever, go hang out with your  ‘roommate’. ” _

_ After that they mutually decide Eddie doesn’t need to come to as many of her shows, she’s just seeing the same shitty material over and over anyway. _

_They both independently decide it sucks that Eddie isn’t waiting in her dressing room when she gets off stage._ )

When Eddie refocuses, chest feeling uncomfortably hollow as she tries to remember how often she’s seen Richie eat in the past few days, she’s half laying down, the soft rock record that had been selected as ‘dinner jams’ still loops quietly, Richie absently plays with Eddie’s fingers, running a thumb gently over the scar across her palm before pressing the matching slash marks together. It’s blankly methodical and in better circumstances Eddie would have found it soothing. Instead she suddenly closes her fingers tightly around the back of Richie’s hand, squeezing her eyes shut as Richie murmurs, slightly startled, before snapping up to make eye contact.

“You know you are the prettiest fucking person I’ve ever seen in my life and I love you  _ so much _ right? Because I know I’m sometimes an asshole when I tease you but I love you so much and I… I just need to make sure you know that.” Richie looks suddenly stricken, floundering for a minute before steeling herself with another false smile.

“Damn Eds, I bet you tell that to all the ladies you absolute  _ scoundrel _ !”

“Can you not joke? Please?” Richie actually stops. Eddie isn’t sure if it’s reveliving or fucking terrifying.

“Sorry.”

The comfortable ambiance of the night is suddenly tensley fragile, wavering on the guitar chords echoing in the background and the flickering of candlelight and Eddie’s hand wrapped so tight it's almost painful around Richie’s.

“You need to know you can talk to me right?”

“I  _ do _ -”

“Do you? Rich, you’ve been weird all week. I can  _ help you _ but you need to  _ let me _ , I can handle it Richie you don’t need to protect me or some shit if Steve did something awful.” At Steve’s name Eddie clocks how Richie tenses for a moment before apparently processing the rest of the statement.

“No! No I’m not  _ protecting you _ , I know you can handle shit!” She seems horrified Eddie would think otherwise, “You just don’t  _ need  _ my stupid emotional problems dumped on you.”

“Dude, that's literally protecting me from bad things. But that's not the big issue right now, you wouldn’t be  _ dumping  _ it, I want to  _ help you  _ becuase you are my girlfriend and my best friend and your emotions aren’t s _ tupid! _ ”

To Eddie’s absolute horror Richie begins to cry. For some reason she hadn’t prepared for that possibility and it floors her. To be fair she doesn’t think she has seen Richie actually cry before in the few years she’s known her and until right now she’s never considered how terribly concerning that is. 

For a horrible moment she just  _ stares _ before launching her arms around Richie, who tries to pull back until it becomes clear that Eddie isn’t about to let go. Defeated, she flops against her chest, letting the sobs racking her body take over.

“Christ, Rich, how long have you been holding this  _ in? _ ” She mumbles, shakily running her hands through Richie’s hair.

Eddie lets her cry it out because she very clearly needs to, and reposistions them so Richie’s head is comfortably settled in her lap. Eventually she lets out a rattling, slow breath and blinks up, looking horribly embarrassed. 

“I… I’m sorry-” Eddie didn’t entirely know what she was doing, but she knew for goddamn certain that she wasn’t going to let her girlfriend feel ashamed of showing her  _ fucking emotions _ .

“Hey, hey none of that. You’re okay, I’ve got you.” Richie’s cheeks are hot as she gently wipes her tears away, “You don’t need to talk about it right now but we need to talk about what's wrong.”

“I  _ know _ but it’s just so  _ fucking stupid _ !” And then everything is spilling out all at once so quickly and words slurred together with a new wave of tears she was clearly trying to swallow back that Eddie has trouble following. Well either it’s that hindering her comprehension or the overwhelming fury bubbling up in her throat at Steve motherfucking Covall. She’s going to  _ kill him _ . 

But that's not what Richie needs to hear right now.

Right now Eddie just holds her and reassures her and tries to restrain her threatening of her girlfriend's manager to a minimum. They’ll have plenty of time to actually work through this tomorrow and the next day and forever after that.

You know, after Eddie commits a fucking murder.

**-**

Steve Covall was a very rich man, despite having exactly one successful client and being a genuinely terrible manager.

Richie Tozier was a goddamn goldmine, she had incredible comedic timing and barely any shame so her delivery of the overwhelmingly sexual material wasn’t awkward like it would be if any other nobody was pulled out of obscurity to perform it. 

She was also overtly insecure and easy to manipulate, willing to do whatever the fuck he told her to despite her complaining. 

But sometimes she was fucking annoying, the amount of cover ups he’d had to work out since that Eddie chick had shown up was getting tedious, he was just glad she had enough shame not to publiclly announce that she was a lesbian. Not that Steve was homophobic! No, Steve knew he was a good guy, he was just being  _ realistic _ . 

His big moneymaker coming out as fucking lesbian spelled nothing but trouble. Well a couple of jokes about her fucking some girls in college might actually go over splendidly (he made a note to bring it up to the writiting team) but once she actually had a fucking  _ girlfriend _ it’d stop being hot.

He’d been worried she was starting to be more trouble than she was worth but recently since their impromptu meeting she’d been much easier to work with than she’d been in a  _ while _ . 

If he was being honest her jokes had been fucking good, once she was  _ actually _ too old and unattractive to make a profit he’d have to think about hiring her as a writer, becuase he wasn’t letting go of Rachel Tozier until she stopped spitting out money. So he was actually excited when Richie actually scheduled a meeting for the first time ever.

“What do you want?” She was wearing her glasses and had her hair messily pulled back, which was goddamn bizarre because he’d pretty much dealt with  _ that _ issue first thing when he signed her. 

“Okay Steve, look, I’m changing my material.”

“Richie we’ve been over this, no you aren't.” She laughed tiredly into her hands, dragging her head up with more determination in her eyes than she’d ever seen before.

“Yes I fucking am. I’m willing to work with the writing team and make compromises but I’m doing this.”

“Rachel, I’m your manager, I control you entire fucking career and I’m telling you that isn’t fucking happening.” She breathes out shakily and Steve knew she’d bend soon, she always did, she’d fight back for a little longer but he was inevitably going to win this argument.

“Then you're fired.”  _ What _ .

“You can’t fucking fire me Richie.”

“Actually I can. Just fucking did actually.” This isn't happening, it couldn’t be goddamn happening.

“Who’s going to hire you? I have connections, I can blackball you from this entire fucking industry. Look Rachel, we can talk about this, don’t do anything  _ stupid _ ! What? Are you going to produce a whole show yourself?”

“Fucking  _ maybe! _ ” She looked overwhelmed and angry but  _ serious _ and Steve was panicking.

“We have a contract! You can’t just fire me!”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been looking over that contract and if we mutually come to an agreement it can be terminated.”

“Well that sucks for you because we  _ won’t  _ be coming to a mutual agreement.” Thank god, he was going to win this, of course he was. But Richie didn’t look defeated enough for him to be comfortable, in fact she was  _ smirking _ and pulling a notebook out of her bag.

“ _ Actually _ , I have 9 years of text exchanges and written off the record deals full of some  _ very  _ suspicious things on your part. So unless you want me to expose, let’s say, a message from you from a month after we started working together where you told me,” She cleared her throat performatively, not even looking at the page, glare set to firmly held uncomfortable eye contact, “‘If you don’t lose at least 10 pounds in the next week I’ll drop you, I’m sure your dying mother will love to know why you are suddenly unemployed and can’t support her!’ Oh or this text from two years ago that says ‘Either you find a boyfriend so the media stops speculating over your sexuality or I’ll hire someone stronger than you, get him drunk, and tell him where you live!’ I’m sure that will be easy to explain to future clients!”

_ Fuck. _

Begrudgingly he signed off on a document Richie had prepared in a manilla folder which had ‘ **_FUCK STEVE “BASTARDMAN” COVALL’_ ** written neatly across it in handwriting that was defintly not Richie’s. He had no clue how he was going to explain to this to his wife.


	14. Career Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Richie redirect their careers

Eddie remembers blurrily from some point last night Richie kissing her cheek as she left a plate of dinner on her desk and telling her “Don’t work too hard, try to actually sleep tonight.” 

She supposes, as she submits her last report and the clock blinks over to 3:15 AM, she sort of broke her promise, but to be fair she doesn’t think she actually vocally agreed to anything, just sort of grunted and leaned into the kiss before getting back to work. 

Wincing at the series of pops that echo from her back when she stretches out of her chair, she stumbles to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Sleep sounds fucking fantastic right about now. Well if she’s being honest she isn’t sure how much sleep she’s going to be getting, she has to be up for work in a couple hours anyway but cuddling up Richie until 7 rolls around is good enough for her. Except Richie isn’t in bed when she gets there, just Bowie who has fully sprawled his body across both their sides, looking very happy with himself.

“ _ Fucker _ .” Richie does this a lot, lectures her about taking breaks and getting sleep before staying up too late herself. Especially now that she’s practically managing herself and writing her own show, they’re both overworking themselves and it isn’t entirely functional.

Just as she suspected, Richie is passed out on the couch, laptop still open next to her, cursor stalling halfway through a barely coherent joke. She snorts, rolling her eyes but there is nothing but fondness behind them as she crawls up on the couch and lightly taps her cheek to wake her. Richie blinks blearily up at her, breaking into a sleepy smile, despite her exasperated facade Eddie can’t help but smile back.

“Hiya Spaggeds!” 

“Oh that's  _ awful _ , I hate that.”

“No you don’t.” No, she didn’t, but she’d be damned before she ever admitted it. Richie shifted her laptop to the coffee table, not bothering to close it before pulling Eddie down on top of her.

“ _ Richie _ , let go! And what happened to going to bed, you big hypocrite!” Eddie weakly attempts to wriggle out of her hug but it's difficult when Richie is so very warm against her side and contentedly running her long fingers through her hair. 

“I was  _ waiting _ for  _ you _ ! Failing to write a script was just a fun bonus.” 

“You didn’t need to wait up, baby. I just finished anyway so let's go to  _ bed _ .” 

“You  _ just _ finished? Fuck dude it's so late, you should just quit.”

“I’m not quitting my job.”

“Why  _ not?  _ You hate it!” Richie whines, burying her face in Eddie’s hair, Eddie goes to argue and realizes belatedly that she really can’t. Going to her job was her favorite part of the day when she was stuck with Myran but she isn’t stuck with Myran now and the monotony tied with too much work for too long hours is starting to catch up with her. When she has other things in her life, happy,  _ good  _ things she sort of does hate her job in retrospect, she’d just never thought about it before.

But it's late and Richie has fallen asleep again, arms still wrapped steadfastly around her middle, so she isn’t going to think about that right now. Instead she is going to think about whether or not it's worth it to wake her up and drag her across the apartment to their bedroom, where, to be fair, Bowie has already made himself comfortable and it’d be rude to move him. 

She regrets it just a bit in the morning, neck stiff and Richie somehow shifted on top of her, snoring softly into her shoulder. She forgot to set an alarm and she’s definitely running late but Richie looks so comfortable, cheek squished against her collar bone, and her sleep addled statement from the night before is still bouncing around in her brain. 

She texts her boss that she’s sick, finding surprisingly she doesn’t really care about if he’s angry or not as she watches Richie sleep for a few more minutes. She basks in the warm sunshine filtering through the curtains, feeling terribly fond as Richie’s nose wrinkles into a quiet little almost sneeze and lets herself drift comfortably back into unconsciousness.

**-**

“Eddie I am not a funny person. I am incapable of being funny.”

“Damn, and here I thought you’d never catch on.” 

“ _ Eddie _ !” Richie whines, slamming her face into a pillow, and Eddie looks up from the spreadsheet she’d been working on, eyes a mix of concern and amusement. Richie huffily flops her head in her direction, body still bent defeatedly over the pillow.

“Are you alright?”

“ _ No! _ I’m not funny and I can’t write and no venues are going to let me preform and even if they do no one is going to come see the show and then I’ve wasted all my money and I’m going to die alone on the streets of LA.”

“Am I not alive in this scenario?” Eddie quips and Richie just squints at her before shoving her face back into cushion with a muffled scream, “Hey, I’m kidding, alright? You are very funny.”

“You’re my girlfriend. You have to say that.”

“I can assure you I do not.”

“Eddie I’m doing a bad job and everyone is going to hate me.”

“You’re so  _ dramatic _ ,” She hesitates, something more serious taking over her expression, “Why, did someone say something?” 

“No, I just can’t write, everytime I’m self deprecating doesn’t mean someone cyberbullied me, Eds.” Richie laughs lightly, despite her sarcasm, something adoring lines her gaze in a way Eddie is still struggling to process even after dealing with it for all the time they’ve been together. 

“Okay but you’d tell me if someone did, right?”

“Yes Eddie. I would tell you.” Richie rolls her eyes and Eddie flips her off. She knows she’s been sort of overprotective during this whole process of Richie redirecting her career _but in her_ _defense_ Richie had bottled up an absurd amount of shit and the whole Steve situation and everything followed was _horrible_. The actually good management companies that put out diverse performers who had freedom of expression refused to sign her because of her risky reputation as being tasteless and offensive, and the ones willing to reach out to her… well most of them were just as bad as Steve. Some were worse. 

One particularly horrible guy who sold himself well and looked incredible on paper, met with her and slipped something into her drink. Whenever Eddie thought about it she wanted to wrap Richie in her arms and never let her out of them. 

After that disaster she’d decided to just manage herself, at least for this next show and Eddie couldn’t be more proud of her. There was no denying it was an insanely difficult path she’d chosen though, but that’s why Eddie was here to support her through it. 

“Wanna take a break? It's getting kinda late so we could go out for dinner or something.”

“No, it’s fine, I need to write a least six more pages to reach my goal for today.”

“You’ve been working all day, come on, you deserve a break.”

“No I fucking  _ don’t _ ! Look just six more pages, okay?” Eddie makes it very clear with her huffing she isn’t happy about it but she concedes, quietly working until Richie slams her laptop shut a few hours later. 

“Finished?” Richie just groans, low and loud, from where she’s slid to the floor and is blankly staring at the ceiling fan, “Are you dying?”

“ _ Yes. _ ” 

“I’ll miss you.”

“Thanks. What’re you working on?” She hesitated, when her coworkers asked about what she was working on or doing with her new habit of taking time off (‘other than hanging out with that  _ boyfriend _ of hers she’s always texting’ one of the women she got lunch with liked to tease, she didn’t try to correct her) she had been relatively staunch in her stance that she wasn’t going to tell anyone about her idea for a new career path, not yet. It was too rough and new for her to be quite comfortable sharing it without feeling almost like she was jinxing herself. 

But what was holding her back from telling Richie wasn’t that, not really. A part of her, a small selfish part, didn’t want to tell Richie until everything was  _ perfect _ , until she had something  _ real  _ to show so she could look impressive. She wants Richie to be impressed by her and proud of her for something wholly happy, not for recovering from some deep rooted trauma, Myran and her mother had followed her long enough. 

She wasn’t going to tell Richie, not until everything was planned and figured out and wrapped up with a nice little bow.

“Just some work stuff,” That wasn’t technically a lie, and therefore she refused to feel guilty about it, “Wanna get food now?”

**-**

Eddie had been at the office late, she’d been preoccupied enough with what she’d taken to calling “her secret project” that she had almost forgotten no one knew she was planning on quitting as soon as she could and therefore still expected her to do work. Which was stupid, but regardless she had a lot of catch up to complete. 

She slid off her shoes and began to head to the kitchen to find a plate for the chinese food she’d picked up for dinner when she realized belatedly she had gotten through most of the apartment with a bag of aromatic take out dangling from her wrist without being accosted by a nosy golden retriever nor her nosy girlfriend, her curiosity wins over her hunger. 

It's not a big apartment and Richie tends to be loud so it's not hard to trace her back to their bedroom. Bowie wags his tail in weak excitement when he spots her but remains sleepily focused on Richie, who hasn’t noticed her leaning against the door frame quite yet, too invested in performing some bit to her canine audience of one to realize.

“-like you know when something happens and you’re like ‘Yes this is Normal’ until years later when you tell someone and they’re like ‘What the actual  _ fuck _ ?”, that happened to me the other day, I was out dinner with my friend and she mentioned wanting to get a haircut and I was like ‘haha one time my manager wanted me to get one and I said no so he made me do 9 shots and then cut it really badly himself so I’d have to fix it professionally but  _ jokes on him _ I just kept it looking shitty anyway until he forced me to change it’. So my friend is in the middle of the restaurant and is having a whole ass breakdown, she literally broke a glass because I stressed her out so much, this woman was mentally projecting a call to a 911 dispatcher so hard I could hear police sirens. And all the while I’m over in my dumb ass little corner reading the dessert menu, so satisfied in my  _ fun relatable story _ !” Eddie snorts into her hand as Richie kneels so very seriously in front of Bowie, cupping his muzzle and scratching behind his ears, “Now as my most esteemed and respected critic, Mr. Bowie Tozier, what are your thoughts on that bit? Terrible? Passable?” Bowie yawns and she nods solemnly, “Yeah I thought so. Absolute shit.” Eddie can’t suppress her laughter anymore.

“I don’t know, I thought it was pretty good.” Richie stammered out ‘ _ Eddie! _ ’ as she stumbled back flat out of her crouched position, Eddie cackling at her as Bowie scrambled down, licking at her face. This whole thing was so absurdly adorable Eddie could barely handle it, feeling the remaining stress from work drain from her body as she sat criss cross on the bed, watching as Richie just buried her face in her hands, groaning as Bowie gave up and settled down across her stomach.

“That was incredible.”

“How long were you  _ there _ ?” 

“Just for the last bit and your very comprehensive review session on it.” Richie just groaned into her hands again, “No, hey come on it was cute!”

Richie flopped her head in her direction, sticking out her tongue childishly, and flipping her off.

“I hate you. Don’t mock my process.”

“Do you do that with all your jokes?” Eddie propped her chin on her hand, genuinely curious even if Richie’s still raised middle finger seemed to think otherwise.

“It is the closest I have to a team to run them by at this point, Bowie tries his very best and I can at least see if they’re unnatural to perform.”

“You could run them by me?”

“Eddie, you do not want me to run them by you. I think you are underestimating how terrible my jokes are. They are not funny.”

“I’ll beat you up if you keep being mean to my girlfriend! Come on, I wanna hear some of them!” Richie sat up a little, propping herself up with her elbows behind her as to not bother Bowie.

“Really? Because I feel like you’re expecting any of them to be good and-” She’s cut off with a pillow to the face.

“I told you I’d beat you up if you kept being mean to my girlfriend, look I brought home food and as we eat it I fully expect to be amused. But, like, only if you want to! That sounded like I was making you tell me your jokes don’t worry that wasn’t what I meant oh my god-” Richie flopped back again, laughing so hard her stomach movement woke up the sleepy dog laying on her.

“ _ Eds _ you’re fine, if you’re not just being nice it’d… be cool to have someone who can actually talk give me feedback. You know if I literally ever find a theatre that’s willing to let me do a show there.” Eddie beamed down at her, leaning down to poke her nose as she walked past.

“You will, I believe in you. Wash your hands before you come eat.”

**-**

“Well it’s going to be difficult but it's feasible, you’ve got all your stuff in order, you have enough saved, I’d say you're solid.” Eddie practically collapsed in her chair, she’d run the numbers herself but hearing someone else confirm them was more relieving than she could have expected.

“God, thank you so much Joe.” Her coworker smiles at her, handing back over the printouts she’d had him look over, he’d made fun of her for it, saying she could have just emailed all of it to him, but a small paranoid part of her still liked the single view simplicity of paper.

“We’ll miss you Edith, don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with more thorough spreadsheets.” The handshake he offers her is a little awkward, but she’s excited enough at the prospects of her plan working out that she doesn’t notice. 

She put in her two week notice on the way out.

“Eddie! You’re home early!” Richie cheers from the couch when Eddie comes in, she looks soft and sleep rumpled, blinking happily from behind her glasses, some disgustingly domestic part of Eddie can’t wait until they can spend all morning in their pajamas together. 

“When did you wake up? It is not that early.” She kisses her cheek and snatches away her laptop to position herself in Richie’s lap.

“I was having a very good dream where I knew how to write.” 

“Unrealistic.”

“ _ Rude _ ! What's got you looking so happy anyway?” This is it, the perfect time to tell Richie. It's finally at the point where she knows everything is going to work out, she’s just waiting on a few things to be finalized and now that Joe has confirmed her things are in order she can make the last steps. But something last minute stops her, what if Richie gets mad at her for keeping it a secret so long? What if she thinks Eddie is being selfish for taking such a financial risk when Richie already has been forced into making one herself? What if she thought Eddie’s plan was stupid and irresponsible? Part of her knows she’s being ridiculous but the other part feels more vulnerable than she ever liked to be and she’s nervous.

“I can’t just be happy to see you?” Richie scoffs, smushing her face comfortably against Eddie’s arm.

“You  _ could _ be but I doubt it because you’re mean.” 

“I am  _ not! _ ” She brings her unoccupied arm around to lightly smack the back of Richie’s head who sputters out  _ ‘See! Mean!’ _ before dumping her off her lap, falsely huffy.

When she looks up from her position on the floor where she’d been pouting Richie is laughing, hand held out to Eddie to help her up, she just looks so horribly earnest the Eddie fucking needs to tell her right now or she thinks she might die. She  _ needs _ to share her excitement with her girlfriend because she's the only thing that could make this better.

“I quit my job!” Richie freezes, hand dangling loosely and eyes scrutinizing her expression like she doesn’t know the proper reaction, which Eddie supposes is fair enough, before settling on a very hesitant smile.

“Yay?” Eddie nods, “Yay! I’m proud of you! Why?”

She tries to think of a better way of phrasing  _ “it was fucking boring and I didn’t want to do it anymore”  _ before remembering prescicly who she was talking to and saying just that. Richie accepts that as an answer and drags her back onto the couch before puffing out her cheeks contemplatively.

“Am I your sugar daddy now?”

“ _ What _ ?” Eddie managed to choke out and Richie sputtered defensively.

“ _ Hey _ if you’re jobless then I’m your sugar daddy that's how it  _ works! _ ”

“No it's  _ not _ !” 

“Well why  _ not _ !” This is it, the moment she's been waiting for, everything is pretty much confirmed, everything is  _ perfect _ and she can finally tell Richie her plan. But the words get stuck in her throat and the little voice in the back of her head is still telling her Richie is going to be mad at her, stomach churning she offers a now worried looking Richie a shaky smile and grabs the print outs she’d given Joe. Richie cocks her head towards her but she sits on the opposite end of the couch and shoves them into her hands and watches her expression. She reads for too long, eyebrows all scrunched up and Eddie can feel her panic mounting, she thinks its stupid, she hates it, she’s mad-

“Holy shit Eddie this is fucking  _ awesome _ !”

“ _ What? _ ”

“This is so cool! Did you figure all of this out yourself oh my god you’re going to start a professional driving service? That's literally perfect for you!”

“You aren’t mad I didn’t tell you?”

“No? You don’t need to tell me about all your life choices babe, you know that right?” And Eddie feels stupid, of course Richie wouldn’t be mad, its  _ Richie _ . She scoots closer and relaxes into her side.

“Yeah I know. So you like it?”

“It’s so good! Eddie I’m so excited for you it's like you’re going to get paid for doing your fucking personal therapy!” She should have known Richie would understand, “So if I paid you I could get you to drive me everywhere I go?”

“I would do that for free, dumbass.”

“Yeah but then I can’t call you my  _ chauffeur _ -”

“Professional driver.”

“They are objectively the same exact thing. But that doesn’t matter! Tell me more about it!”

“Really?” Richie grins and nods, something warm spreads through Eddie’s chest, “I love you so much.” She surges up, pausing a second before she reaches Richie’s lips, “Wait you like just got up have you brushed your teeth yet because that's gross-” Richie rolls her eyes and presses her into a reassuringly minty kiss.

“Yes, asshole, now tell me about your  _ professional driving  _ service.” She kisses her again, soft and quick before falling back and rambling on about her plans.

It takes two months for K-Rides to open, it takes longer for it to actually pick up a significant amount of business and in that time Richie is pretty much the only thing keeping Eddie sane.

“This was a fucking mistake, Richie, no one is calling.”

“ _ Hey _ , you just opened, it’s going to take a bit for it to take off.”

“I opened a month ago.”

“And it's going to be incredible when people realize this is the best goddamn driving service in LA.” Eddie sits up in bed again, reaching for her phone to check her email again, Richie yanks it out of her hand and plugs it in on her side of the bed.

“ _ Hey! _ ” 

“No it’s bedtime, no one is going to contact you at midnight.”

“No one is ever going to contact me.”

“ _ No _ ! That is not what I mean!” Richie puffs her cheeks out and drags Eddie down into her chest as she breathes out shakily where she’s pressed to the hollow of her throat. 

“Rich, I made a mistake I never should have quit my job.”

“Eds, your job didn’t make you happy, driving  _ does _ ! It’s late, you need sleep.”

“But-”

“Nope! We’re going to sleep now and you can figure everything out when you aren’t sleep deprived, okay baby?” Richie rubbed her hands down her back and despite herself Eddie felt herself relax. 

“Okay.” She mumbled and Richie snorted lightly, pressing a kiss to her hair.

The next morning she gets four people calling for a ride, the week after they have twenty, it takes three months for K-Drives to take off, but it does. 

Richie says I told you so with more pride than Edde thinks it has ever been worded before.

**-**

“Miss Kaspbrak?” The secretary, a college student named Maxine who did good enough work that it didn’t matter if she could only work part time, knocked on the doorframe of her office. 

“Yeah?” Maxine looked nervous, shifting awkwardly, but she just tended to just look like that in the few months she’d been with the company so Eddie didn’t think much of it.

“I know you’re off in 20 minutes and you’ve already been out a bunch today but someone called and specifically requested you to drive them?”

“Oh! Did they leave a name?”

“Tozier?” Eddie let out a cackle and Maxine looked genuinely surprised, she supposes she’s a bit more reserved at work, she waves her hands a little, pressing down her laughter.

“I know her, it’s okay, I’ll take it.”

“Oh, alright! I’ll confirm it!”

When she pulls up outside her own apartment in her own car because she’s not about to go back to the office to drop off a company car just to drive her girlfriend, her girlfriend who is standing on the sidewalk grinning like dumb, beautiful idiot.

“Is this Miss Tozier?”

“Perhaps!” She climbs into the front seat, “I’m very disappointed you don’t have a fun little hat, I thought chauffeurs were supposed to have those.”

“I hate you.”

“Wow I’m going to give you a terrible review on Yelp.”

“ _ God,  _ where are we going?”

“I’ve got a meeting downtown to confirm some show dates.” Eddie froze, car stalling, snapping her head over to her girlfriend whose shit eating grin has somehow grown wider.

“No fucking shit.  _ Oh my god _ ! Really?” Richie nods and Eddie checks to see that no one is around the car before pulling her into a kiss, “ _ Hell yes _ !”

“Did you think I was just wearing a dress for  _ fun _ ?” Eddie scoffs, rolling her eyes and pulling down the road, tossing Richie her phone to put in the address.

“So you gave my company money to drive you… why?”

“I thought it was funny.” She answers simply, “Also give me the aux cord.” And because Eddie is proud of her she concedes, secretly she likes Richie’s stupid, eclectic playlists anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im not going to lie this chapter is ROUGH but I have wanted to give Eddie the job she has in the book (kinda) for a while and it was a needed chapter, DW things start to pick up from here


	15. The Emmys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie's show is more popular than she expected, if she's being honest she expected to be booed off the stage and never work in comedy again, but she now she has a tour, a Netflix special, a nomination, and a Eddie Kaspbrak to prove her wrong

Despite Eddie’s apparent faith in her, Richie really wasn’t expecting much to come from her shitty self produced show. 

To be fair, the first few shows when the majority of the audience was still her old viewers were mostly busts, middle aged white men didn’t like to hear that their not-like-other-girls raunchy female fuck toy had her personality outside of sexism and jokes about sucking their dicks. 

But some people, young people with open minds, gave her a shot, not that she could even begin to comprehend why. Reviews popped up more and more positive and sudden she had someone offering to send her on tour with a nice little Netflix special at the end of everything to sweeten the deal and she has absolutely no fucking clue how it happened.

Eddie says it's because she’s “funny” but Eddie also says that she is the ‘prettiest person she knows’ so Eddie is undeniably a liar when she is feeling sappy.

Touring has always made her feel weird, it broke her away from the boring day to day, she liked traveling well enough, it made her feel less empty. But there was always the loneliness when she realized no one was waiting for her back home and the ugly mix of guilt and disgust over her sets that she washed out with whisky shots before she could perform them.

But now she liked her set, and other people did too evidently, she didn’t have Steve breathing down her neck, everything that upset her about touring before was gone. Expect, having someone waiting for her back home was apparently worse than being alone. She missed Eddie so much it  _ ached _ .

“ _ I’ll take a week or two off and meet you somewhere! _ ” Eddie promised from her side of the video call, Bowie wiggling in her hold because Richie had just whined about missing her dog.

“Can you do that?”

_ “I own the company, I can do what I want _ . _ ” _ Richie snorted and mumbled something about Eddie being a corrupt capitalist that made her laugh.

“I miss you.” She whines, flopping the shitty hotel comforter around her head and burrowing into it.

“ _ God you’re such a baby _ ,” Richie squawks in offense and Eddie’s eyes soften, “ _ I’m kidding, I miss you too _ .  _ Isn’t it late where you are?” _

“Yeah, but I’m not,” She yawns, flopping her face defeatedly into the blanket, “tired.”

“ _ Mhm. Go to bed dumbass, you have a show tomorrow. _ ” She screwed up her face, debating whether or not the inevitable teasing would be worth it to tell Eddie she literally could not fall asleep without her girlfriend unless she waited until she was exhausted, the bed felt too empty and her memories felt too fuzzy.

“No.” Was the eloquent response she settled on instead.

“ _ No? _ ” Eddie rolled her eyes, incredulous, looking down at the dog in her lap, “ _ Hear that Bowie? She’s just not going to fucking sleep. I know, I’m just as disappointed as you are. _ ”

“Don’t bring him into this! That's cheating!”

“ _ I’m willing to cheat if it’ll get you to sleep! Baby, come on, do you know all the things that could happen to you if you’re sleep deprived?” _

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“ _ I fucking will if you don’t hang up and go to bed!” _

“Ugh, I just wanna be  _ home _ !” Something in Eddie’s raring up resolve softens and them almost entirely crumbles when she looks at Richie (who is sure she looks  _ pathetic _ , all ruddy cheeked from her  _ stupid  _ tears she’s all of a sudden trying to hold back and pouting like a literal toddler, all wrapped up in a blanket).

“ _ Oh Rich, oh fuck, you better not start crying or I’ll start crying and making your girlfriend cry is a dick move!” _

“I’m sorry?”

“ _ Don’t apologize! _ ”

“I’m sorry for saying sorry?” She snorted and Eddie scrunched her nose and rolled her eyes with a soft grin that Richie had come to learn meant she wasn’t really annoyed at her.

“ _ I’ll take off tomorrow and come meet you. _ ”

“Babe, I’m in Massachusetts you can wait until I get closer if you’re gonna come.”

“ _ Rich have you been fucking sleeping? _ ”

“I get my 8 hours.” Eddie levels her with a supremely unconvinced glare, “I get at least an hour.”

“ _ Rachel Tozier!”  _ Schooling her face into the most innocent grin possible, she blinked wide eyed towards the camera.

“Yes darling?”

“ _ I’m meeting you in Boston _ .”

A few days later Eddie muscles her way backstage and spends the two weeks joined with the tour complaining about the rooms Richie is given and any other possibly conveived slight against her girlfriend, half the tour crew hates her and the other half is just confused as to who the fuck she is. Richie appreciated it even if she teased her relentlessly for being embarrassing as she drags her on sight seeing dates the crew think are friendly hang outs. Part of Richie is grateful for Eddie’s annoying overprotectiveness solely because it discouraged people from tagging along after the first few times. The pair had no clue how to tell them to go away without revealing the true nature of their relationship but having Tim the stage manager and John the lighting dude sitting in between them at dinner really ruined any possible romance.

Despite her claims about shitty hotel beds, Eddie tugs Richie through a nighttime routine she hasn’t been following since the tour started and holds her until she falls asleep, it doesn’t take long with the other woman there.

Eddie never mentions it but she’d had trouble sleeping alone too.

**-**

The only real downside to having Richie home (even if Eddie unconvincingly tells her to go back on tour every time she does something minimally annoying) is now Eddie can’t do embarrassing shit without being teased for it. 

“Is that _my_ _show,_ Spaghetti?”

“No.” Richie grinned, plopping next to her and pausing the tv which was unquestionably playing Richie’s new Netflix special.

“That's so  _ cute  _ you’re a  _ fan! _ ”

“I’m watching to heckle it. Anyone who is laughing in the audience has no sense of humor.”

“Babe, you were in the audience that night.” 

“ _ Shit _ .” Richie dissolves into poorly contained giggles which Eddie refuses to think of as adorable because she’s acting fake annoyed at Richie for catching her watching it and fondness would ruin the banter. Richie kisses her cheek and that plan goes right out the window, she drops herself defeatedly against her side, snatching the remote and hitting play.

“ _ Ew no _ !” She grabs it back and turns off the tv, ignoring Eddie’s confused and offended exclamation. 

“What the fuck Tozier?” 

“I don’t wanna watch my own show, that's  _ embarrassing _ !” 

“You are absolutely ridiculous.” Eddie adapted to the sudden silence, she had a real Richie to entertain her, which she supposed was better. The onscreen Richie kept calling Eddie her “best friend” or “roommate” and that was much lamer than this Richie who she could kiss. Which she did.

“Do you really not watch your own stuff?” Richie whined at the loss of contact as Eddie pulled herself away, eyeing her critically up and down trying to discern if the previous claim was something to be concerned about. With Richie you could never really tell.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed but I’ve never had a good show before, didn’t really wanna relive that shit.”

“Some of your college stuff was good!” Richie flopped her head in Eddie’s direction, exaggerated bemusement dancing in her eyes.

“Eddie, my love, no one’s college stuff is  _ good _ .” She wanted to argue but there's still something tense lining Richie’s shoulders telling her to drop it. Eddie really doesn’t want to drop it.

“Come on, I wanna keep watching.”

“ _ Noooo _ !” She whines holding the remote high so it is out of her significantly shorter reach.

“You  _ know  _ this show is good so what's the  _ problem _ ?” She knew she was pushing something Richie clearly didn’t want to be pushed but Eddie had found that with Rachel Tozier you had to take calculated risks to force her to talk about her emotions. This was just an unexpected example of it.

“I don’t want to watch it and realize it's awful.” Richie drops, carefully flippant in a way that makes Eddie’s stomach twist uncomfortably.

“Why would it be awful?” Richie sighs low and loud, grumbling something about not needing to be interrogated.

“I don’t think it really is but I really won’t be able to take it if I watch it and it’s just like all the other stuff I put out, I  _ need  _ this one to be good.”

“It  _ is  _ good and even if somehow the thousands of excellent reviews were lying you just keep putting stuff out and getting better.”

“You don’t  _ get it _ -” She cut herself off too quickly, schooling her face back into an easy smile, mannerisms still screaming at Eddie to let it go, but she isn’t about to just let Richie bottle up something that's so obviously bothering her. They’d gotten better at making Richie more open about her problems but sometimes things still got buried deep.

“Then help me understand it!” Richie lets her drag her down into her chest, rolling her eyes and Eddie squeezes her tight enough to break down the defensive walls Richie was probably trying to build up if Eddie knew her girlfriend (which she fucking did, thank you very much).

“It's not a big deal, I just  _ really  _ need this show to have been good for my… for my mom.”  _ Oh. _ Richie didn’t talk about her parents often. Eddie knew their names, that they were incredible parents who died of a car crash and cancer respectivly, and after one particularly upsetting conversation that the only clear memories she had of her father were bad ones (“God, Eds, I hate it, it’s like someone erased all my memories except the ones where I disappointed him or some fucking shit.”), so she really didn’t know what to expect except that it was probably going to be heartbreaking.

“Your… mom?”

“Yeah, but it’s really,  _ really _ not a big deal so we can-”

“It is so clearly a big deal, baby.” She presses a kiss to her cheek and Richie huffs before snuggling closer, Eddie isn’t sure if she is even aware she’s doing it, Richie tends to be overwhelmingly tactile when she’s upset.

“ _ God _ , okay, my first, like, big recorded show came out the week before my mom died, and she was so excited for it because it was a big break for me and she hadn’t been able leave the hospital to see me perform for a super long time but… I never let her see it. Told her there was a production issue that delayed the premier and made up bits that weren't in it and ‘performed it’ for her in her hospice room. She never got to watch the real thing but the real thing would have just made her sad. That whole show was the first time I didn’t contribute a single joke to a set and she could always tell when a joke was ghost-written, it always upset her more than she let on, I could tell.  _ Fuck, _ I just can’t help but feel like they would have been disappointed in all the shit I did with Steve-”

“But you aren’t with Steve anymore!”

“ _ Eds _ ,” Her voice wavered dangerously and Eddie decisively snapped her mouth shut, “I just want to think that I finally have a show that would have made her proud but I’m  _ so  _ scared it’s just as bad as my other ones and I’ll watch it and  _ know _ she’d hate it. I can’t fucking handle that Eddie.”

“Oh  _ baby _ … well I can’t speak for your parents but I can tell you that  _ I’m  _ proud of you and I get the feeling they would be too.” She tucks her under her chin, wincing at the wet sounding sniff Richie wipes with her sleeve.

“Thanks Eds.”

“Anytime, now should we start from the beginning or just from where I was?”

“Eddie I literally just-”

“Yeah I know, so we’re gonna watch it and I’m going to point out all my favorite parts and why it’s great and you’re allowed to tease me for it all you want as long as you know I’m telling the truth. Got it?”

“ _ Fuck,  _ you  _ bastard _ , making me  _ almost cry. _ I love you so much.”

“I know.” Eddie smiled into her hair.

“Just hit play, Han Solo.”

**-**

“Who's designing it again?” Eddie asked, handing her the notebook page of her measurements she had been fruitlessly searching for.

“I don’t know… some up and coming couple that were really cheap… Rogan and Marsh?”

“Are they good?”

“I mean I don’t think anything they’ve designed has fallen apart on the carpet yet and that's really where my fashion expertise ends-”

“No but really, your show is up for an  _ award _ you deserve something  _ perfect _ ! Maybe I should be there when you’re on the call and-”

“I  _ got it _ Eds, plus you wrote your suggestions on what “makes Richie look hot and also what makes Richie look like an awkward idiot” written in a color coordinated list in my notebook.” Eddie looks slightly embarrassed and grumbles out ‘ _ I’m helping _ ’ as Richie kisses the top of her head and then promptly bops the same place lightly with the spiral bound book before going to answer the call.

“Good morning, thank you so much for letting us design your dress!” The man on the other end of the screen is practically beaming in excitement. Richie can tell he’s slightly uncomfortable in the fully buttoned up dress shirt and stiff blazer he’s donned for the online meeting. She gets the feeling that dressing up is something he does when he’s nervous and wants to look professional, which should feel fake and a little embarrassing but on the red head its endearing (she’s not sure how she can read him so well, or why she instantly feels so comfortable with him, she never has with her designers before, not that she’d gotten to consult much with them).

“Hi! Thank  _ you _ for designing it! Just call me Richie though... Beverly? I’m guessing?”

“Huh, yeah, most of the time people assume my wife is the Beverly! You prefer Richie? Okay I’ll write that down!” 

“That's weird Beverly is just as much of a boy's name, especially more than  _ Tanya _ .”

“ _ Thank you _ ! Okay I’m getting off topic, let's talk  _ dress _ , you’re nominated right? That’s super exciting!”

“Yeah, it is! Actually it's sort of terrifying, it's the first special in a while that's entirely my own material, I’m honestly really proud of it but it just makes all of this so much more… nerve wracking? If that makes sense? Like they’re deciding if  _ I _ should win as a person, not based on the show.” She normally doesn’t overshare this much with strangers but there is something about this guy that makes her want to tell him all her secrets. He doesn’t look put off by the sudden vulnerability, instead he’s nodding with such an understanding smile she feels like she might just break down in front of this random dude.

“No, that makes  _ total  _ sense! Well we’ll just need to make sure it’s perfect for you.”

They talk for a  _ while _ , banter flowing naturally and making eachother laugh so hard at one point Eddie pokes her head in just off screen to ask if she’s okay. When Beverly asks her who it was once their giggles taper off she finds herself wanting to tell him it's her girlfriend. She (of course) tamps down the urge and lies to him that she’s her roommate, but she can’t ignore something deep in her chest that feels like she missed an opportunity. 

Beverly eventually holds up a loose sketch of a dress Richie actually likes for the first time in her career, its all bright colors and mixed patterns with a dumb poofy skirt that she really wants to twirl in. He looks almost like he’s going to cry when she tells him so.

“You really like it?”

“ _ Yes _ , holy fucking shit Beverly did you just design that? That is like everything I’ve ever wanted to wear in a dress but it actually looks nice.”

“Well sort of? I had an original sketch my wife helped on but… we were talking and I didn’t think it’d work. If you don’t mind me saying Richie, I think you are the easiest client I’ve ever had.”

“You just said you redesigned a whole goddamn dress for me.” He snorts, plopping the pad out of frame.

“Yeah but it’s like I knew exactly what I had to change and what the dress had to look like the second I saw you, I don’t know, usually I need to do some prodding before I figure it out.”

“Guess I’m just a fashion  _ goddess _ , you could feel my  _ fashionable power  _ through the screen!” He levels her with a look, failing to hold back his laughter as he eyes the horrible sweater she’d thrown on that morning and her striped pajama clad legs she’d brought into frame even though earlier she’d promised Eddie ‘its a video call I only need to be presentable waist up!’

“Yes of course, that's it.” He deadpans before falling into the crookedly bright grin he’d been wearing most of the call, “So if you send me your measurements we can get this started and then we can go from there in scheduling an actually fitting… that is if you are  _ sure _ this is how you want the dress to look because I-”

“It's  _ perfect _ Bevvy.” All of sudden something undescernable but overwhelmingly  _ right _ clicks in both of them at the nickname until it's broken by someone walking in on Beverly’s side of the call. Any comfortable relaxation that had fallen over him during the consultation becomes immediately ridgid. 

“Babe are you  _ still _ on that call?” A gorgeous woman slides onto screen, smiling tightly at Richie while her hands find every inch of Bev’s shoulders and chest she can reach as she props herself behind him, clearly angling her wedding ring so it faces the camera. Richie thinks she sees him flinch but writes it off on the call glitching.

“Yeah, Tan, um, we reworked the design a little, had a lot to talk about.”

“Did you now?” She carefully raises an eyebrow and Richie suddenly feels like she’s intruding on something as Beverly hands over the pad, “Mmm, this is risky, you’re sure you want this? We have some more feminine,  _ nicer _ designs. Are you sure  _ you  _ want to risk trying to pull off something this  _ daring _ … maybe if we added some sleeves and used muted colors we could-”

“Nope! That's the one!” She ignores how much Tanya Rogan-Marsh’s tone makes her want to crawl into her sweater and skip dinner. She hasn’t felt like that in a while and clings to her original love of the design desperately as the judgmental gaze hacks away at her carefully built up confidence.

Beverly seems to have shrunk in his wife’s presence even though she is much smaller than him.

“Mmm, alright. I’d like to talk to you Beverly, if we’re done here?”

“Well if you don’t need anything else from me right now-” The call is ended before Richie can finish. 

A month later at her fitting Tanya apologizes icily about her husband’s absence and makes a joke about how she doesn’t want him  _ feeling up any other women when he’s fitting them _ . She tries not to take it personally when the designer keeps “accidentally” pricking her sides with pins. Halfway through Tanya comments that she knew Richie and her husband talked “for a while” about the dress. She spends the rest of the appointment trying to remember  _ ever  _ talking to Tanya Marsh-Rogan’s husband, but she can't; she assumes it wasn’t a very memorable consultation. She doesn’t even remember his name.

**-**

“It’s tomorrow, you think you’re ready?” Eddie called from the adjoining master bathroom, Richie contemplated smothering herself with a pillow at the reminder, settling on placing it over her face and calling back a convincing  _ “Kinda” _ .

“What was that?” 

“I said I’m not going to win so yes.”

“That is  _ not  _ what you said and you don’t know that!” Richie dragged her down next to her.

“I do know that, but if  _ somehow _ I do win, are you sure you’re okay with my plan for my speech, because it’ll affect you even if I don’t say your name. Paparzzi is gong to be fucking brutal so just say the word and I won’t do it.

“ _ Richie _ , we’ve talked about it, I’m ready. All that matters is that you’re ready too.”

“You sure?” She desperately didn’t want to pressure Eddie into anything, it wouldn’t take the media long to put two and two together. They’d had several lengthy conversations over it but a small part of her, the same small part that had no fucking clue how she was even nominated and still feared being alone, was worried Eddie had just felt like she had to agree.

“ _ Yes _ !” Something soft lined Eddie’s annoyance and despite herself Richie believes her, “Rachel Margaret Tozier I love you and I want to be able to tell my coworkers about you and call our dates  _ dates _ and kiss you the second you come off stage. If the whole world needs to know and plaster it over every magazine cover in America then I’m finally ready to deal with that as long as you are, got it asshole?”

“Got it.”

She falls asleep against Eddie’s chest, far happier than she ever thought possible and more content and unafraid than she ever thought she could be, especially with what was written into her potential speech for tomorrow.

Something claws at the back of her brain, weak and desperate as it drags her through inscrutable scenes that feel half like nightmares half like memories.

_ She’s in an arcade and the girl she’s playing with is pretty and her hair falls down her back in shiny blonde curls and she laughs at Richies jokes _

_ The bell above the door jingles as she offers to play again and the girl’s eyes cut between the token held between Richie’s fingers and the rowdy group of boys that had entered.  _

_ She looks scared and for some reason that’s surprising, like it’s new and discordant in the confusingly familiar motions of the scene. _

_ But the fear crumbles into cruelty when the clear leader of the boys snaps “What the fuck is going on here?” _

_ “She… she tried to  _ **_touch me_ ** _!” She whines, falsely afraid and angry, the boy’s face grows red. _

_ “No! No I didn’t-” _

_ “Richie fucking Tozier? Are you trying to fuck my little cousin? Get out of here  _ **_dyke_ ** _!” _

_ She runs out of the arcade and it feels like someone one is chasing her, she’s suddenly hyper aware of the people tugging their children away from her and the kids whispering to their friends and pointing and the words  _ **_lesbo_ ** _ and  _ **_dyke_ ** _ and  _ **_Richie Tozier_ ** _ tied intrinsically together across bathroom stall walls.  _

_ Someone grabs her from behind, slamming her face into a carved up bridge wall before throwing her over it into nothingness, screams and laughter and slurs echo around her but nothing is louder than the thing chasing her shrieking that this is what happens when she lets the world know her  _ **_DIRTY LITTLE SECRET_ ** _! _

She snaps awake with a gasp, the nightmare already disappearing into a vague feeling of unease and fear, all specificity erased.

“You okay?” Eddie mumbles sleepily, cupping the back of her head close again from where she’d pulled back. She nuzzled into her warmth, the fear drifting away again, she has Eddie so everything is alright. How could it not be?

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Eddie hums and presses a kiss to her hair, soft and protective like a ward against any more nightmares.

Her sleep is peaceful from there on out.

**-**

Eddie excitedly hit her much harder than Richie was sure she intended when they announced her name in the list of nominees, not that Richie quite cared. Despite how convinced she was that the award was going to one of the much more deserving nominees her nerves were making her stomach churn uncomfortably. 

“And the Emmy goes to…” Eddie’s hand squeezed her’s tightly, or her’s squeezed Eddie’s she couldn’t tell at this point, “Rachel Tozier!” Oh good for them! She brought her hands up to clap when she realized that Rachel Tozier was her.  _ Holy fucking shit thats  _ **_her_ ** _.  _ Eddie is pushing her out of her seat and people are cheering  _ for her what the fuck? _

Irrationally, as she walks up the stage the only thing she can even begin to wrap her head around was how on brand and fucking stupid it would be if she fell up the stairs on her skirt. Somehow she didn’t, one of the announcers hands her the lighter than expected trophy and walks off. It takes her a second to realize she has to make a  _ speech now _ .

“Oh, wow, I’m sure I’m not allowed to curse up here but I definitely will, so I’m going to apologize in advance for  _ that _ .” It’s a weak joke but the audience laughs really hard at it, that's some classic trashmouth humor and it's somewhat relaxing. She is about to be much more serious than is in her wheelhouse. 

“Well, thank you? So much. I genuinely was not expecting to have to make this speech but here I am! I want to thank everyone who gave me the chance to make this special, I don’t know  _ why  _ you all did but I really appreciate everyone for giving me a chance and helping me get here!” The audience does a polite little clap at that and she barely hears it, her next words building in the back of her throat. She doesn’t know if she can do this. Why did she ever think she could  _ do this _ ? Eddie is why, fucking Eddie Kaspbrak making Richie  _ happy and daring and brave. _

“And most of all I’d like to thank… my girlfriend, who supported me endlessly through all of this and helped me get to this point where I’m up here coming out on fucking national television.” The theatre is  _ silent _ for a second and then halfway through one woman leaps to her feet and cheers louder than Richie thought was possible and then two people are clapping and then fifty and then the rest of the audience joins in. The cheering is so fucking loud Richie can’t hear herself think and she knows she’s about to cry like a little bitch in front of all these people. Maybe she already is, she really can’t process half of what is happening right now because  _ she did it and people are clapping for it. _

“I think you probably already know my girlfriend from all the stories in my special where I refer to her as my  _ roomate _ which she  _ hated _ by the way, but it won me a fucking Emmy so hope this makes up for it babe! This is for you Spaghetti! Thank you!” 

Edith Kaspbrak is backstage, she’s not sure how she convinced the stage hand to let her back there and is doing a terrible job suppressing her concern that it was that easy to sprint back there the second Richie’s name was called and watch from the wings for the whole speech. A stagehand holds her hand as she sobs great big, happy, proud tears. She is glad because if the complete stranger who also seemed to be equally as much of a mess (and slid off her headset to whisper ‘My wife is going to love her dress’ halfway through) wasn’t grounding her she’d sprint on stage and wrap her Richie up in her arms right then and there. She grabs her girlfriend’s face and quickly wipes her tears away from her surprised eyes the second she exits the stage.

“Eds what are you doing back here?” She whispers, giddy and grinning and flushed.

“This!” And Eddie kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her.

Up and coming horror writer and nominee for best screenplay Billie Denbrough cheers the loudest in the audience when Richie Tozier wins her award. Her boyfriend, who has looked bored the whole night (none of his projects this year had been nominated and he hadn’t even tried to hide his annoyance from her at still needing to come) looks at her strangely. 

She herself doesn’t quite know why she is so excited for the comedian, she’s not even a big fan of her stuff, but she feels fired up and proud. When she comes out Bill is the first to stand up in her seat and clap as hard as she can, not stopping even when Andrew pulls her down, embarrassed. 

She tries to look for the woman at the afterparty to congratulate her, but Andrew tells her that it would be weird and before dragging her over to another high status casting agent he’d been taking himself up to. When she runs into the comedian at the bar (“Bill, darling, can you get us a couple drinks? Thank you, now James, maybe we can find a quiet corner to discuss that audition?”) she goes to stop her before realizing she doesn’t quite remember what she wanted to say or why she wanted to say it.

Beverly Marsh doesn’t watch the awards, instead he wakes up the next morning to his wife hissing “That slut we designed for won last night, came out as a dyke too, is that why you wanted to fuck her so bad? Do you think that’s  _ hot _ Beverly? Because that is  _ disgusting _ .” He tries to ask her who she’s talking about but she just slams his skull into the headboard and screams until he apologizes. He doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for.

They get more clients afterwards and it's a while before Tanya gets in “one of her moods” again, so he supposes he should thank the woman who got them the publicity, but h e can’t seem to remember who it was.

Ben Hanscom likes award shows in theory, but after a while watching them drunk and so very alone just gets sad. She still does it everytime one airs, sets herself on her couch in her pajamas and watches beautiful people in perfect relationships have the best nights of their lives. She tries not to be self pitying but it gets hard, a few years prior her only female coworker on a project had invited her to a viewing party which had been fun, but they’d stopped talking after the project was completed and she hadn’t been invited to another one since. 

She supposed that if she really didn’t want to be alone she could take up Mark’s offer for a date, he was one of the members of her current project and he kept asking her out. She didn’t quite have an answer for why she kept saying no, it made her feel absolutely terrible every time his face crumpled after she turned him down as gently as she could, but he wasn’t  _ right _ .  His hair too dark and his kindness too deeply buried for her confusingly detailed standards. 

She was sure he’d regret it if they actually dated anyway, she’d seen his past girlfriends from his pictures on FaceBook and she wasn’t pretty enough for what he was u sed to. She drowns her thoughts of Mark in the familiarity of being wasted and watches a comedian she’s never heard of, but who looks so very familiar, accept an award and embrace her truth. 

Suddenly smiling with an odd amount of pride she finishes off a bottle after cheersing it to the screen. 

She’s not sure if she feels more or less alone.

Samantha Uris-Blum and her husband aren’t huge awards show people, they don’t see enough movies for them to make much sense. Patrick had turned one on as background noise while they read and despite herself she became invested in the comedy special category. She actually  _ shrieks _ when a woman in a loud dress (Richie Tozier, god, why does that sound so familiar?) wins and halfway through her speech Pat presses a kiss to her hair with a softly concerned “What's wrong love?”

It takes her a second to realize she’s crying, and she doesn’t know how to explain that they aren’t sad tears but  _ proud _ ones, because she doesn’t understand it herself.

“I… I’m just really happy for her.” She eventually mumbles, slightly embarrassed, before he pulls her close and they watch the comedian dramatically bow and exit the stage.

“I didn’t know you liked comedy, she seems different from the stuff you normally watch.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her stuff before, she just… looks like she deserves to be happy.” Pat grins sleepily down at her, it's later than they’re usually up, that's probably why she feels off.

“Maybe we should give her a try at some point! I mean she calls her girlfriend  _ spaghetti _ . I think you may have finally found someone who has the same weird sense of humor as you.” She gasps in mock offense and hits him with a pillow

“I do  _ not _ have a weird sense of humor!” He just snorts at her, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Darling I love you but that's a goddamn lie.”

“Take it back!” She lightly smacks him with the pillow until he gives in and they slump in a tired, giggly pile.

“Wanna stay up and watch the other awards?” 

“No, that's okay babylove, I’m tired. Thank you for humoring me.”

“Any time.”

(When he brings up the special a week later she can’t remember the comedian’s name. They never end up watching it.)

Michelle “Mike” Hanlon always watches her friend’s award shows, but this one is so infuriating she keeps wanting to turn it off. Bill and Richie are in the  _ same goddamn room _ and they don’t even  _ recognize each other _ ! Richie is wearing one of Beverly’s dresses and she doesn’t even  _ know _ ! 

Bill doesn’t win, not that Mike is suprised, despite getting really popular, her latest movie adaptation somehow has a worse ending than the book, and that is truly saying something. She still rewinds to watch Bill’s grinning face flash on screen, it makes her stomach feel uncomfortably warm.

But Richie wins and  _ shit  _ she deserves it. Mike had forced herself to watch as Richie’s content veered horribly away from the Richie she knew but this latest special… it was all Richie and it was  _ incredible _ . A small selfish part of Mike refuses to watch it again, it's too much like her Richie for her to handle when she can’t actually call her to rave about it. 

And then Richie comes out. Rachel Marget Tozier who had been ruthlessly bullied for being a “dyke” and who looked at Eddie in a way that is suddenly clicking into place comes out and has a girlfriend and Mike is overwhelmed. She wants so desperately to hug her and tell her how _proud she is_ _of her_ , but Richie wouldn’t know who she was and even though she’s had over a decade to adjust she starts to cry.

It takes her a minute to realize Richie calls her girlfriend  _ Spaghetti _ .


	16. The Last Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Eddie have been married for (almost) six years, Richie's comedy has never been more popular and Eddie's business is booming.  
> Everything is perfect.  
> Until a 27 year timer they didn't know they had runs out.  
> Richie gets a call.
> 
> (TW!! Suicide attempt at the end of the chapter)

__ Richie has always been a slow riser, but something about being wrapped around her wife while she runs her hands through her hair makes the process of dragging herself into wakefulness just that much harder. Sue her. 

She can tell Eddie is watching her sleep, she doesn’t know Richie is aware of how often she does it, but Richie finds it far too endearing to tease her for it. Eddie shifts above her, hand leaving her hair and moving slightly over her shoulder. She is sure Eddie’s texting someone, probably an important work thing, but Richie’s still half asleep and misses the contact. She whines into her wife’s neck from where she is still tucked under her chin and grabs weakly for Eddie’s hand, eyes still closed.

“You’re a big baby, you know that, right?” Eddie breaks the comfortable silence softly, throat vibrating under Richie’s forehead.

“ _ No, you _ .” She isn’t sure that makes much sense but she’s too sleepy to think all that hard on a comeback, Eddie snorts, adjusting her hold to tilt her head up to face her. Reluctantly Richie opens her eyes, blinking happily at her blurry wife.

“G’morning.”

“Good morning,” Eddie presses a kiss to her forehead and Richie leans into it, she knows it's the best one she’ll be getting until she drags her ass out of bed and brushes her teeth, it's an well debated arrangement in their household (Eddie defending with statistics why morning breath kisses are gross and unsanitary and Richie shooting back with the airtight argument that Eddie  _ married _ this morning breath).

“What time issit?” Eddie hums for a second before remarking ‘9:22’, which was odd because Eddie had been whining for weeks that she had volunteered to take a 7 in the morning ride today. 

Richie summarizes her question with an elegant, “Work?”

“You were too warm and cute for me to get up, the newbie I dumped the ride on definitely hates you now.” Richie snorts, cuddling closer. Eddie had decided once their relationship became relatively public that she could use it to her advantage by blaming all her days off and late arrivals on her lazy girlfriend, and then later the far more convincing excuse of her lazy wife. Richie thought it was fucking hilarious so she didn’t stop her, even if it got her several glares whenever she stopped by the office.

“I’m a terrible influence on you.” 

“You have no idea, Tozier.”

“ _ Kaspbrak-Tozier _ !” She preened, it’d been almost six years but  _ fuck  _ if saying that still didn’t make Richie feel warm all over. 

“I can revoke my Kaspbrak at any time, bitch.” But it isn’t very convincing considering Eddie is still more or less cradling her head, thumb running softly over and down her cheekbone.

“Absolutely not, it’s mine now, I own it.  _ Hey _ !” Eddie ruins her dramatics by pressing a quick peck to her cheek and dragging herself out of bed.

“I’ve still got work even if I’m skipping out on that one ride.” She calls over her shoulder, heading into the bathroom.

“Thats fucking  _ dumb _ !” Richie huffs, not caring how childish she sounds as she drops defeatedly back into the pillows, staring at the blurry ceiling fan circling lazily above her. 

It’s a normal morning, lazy and comfortable and perfect.

Her cell phone rings.

_ Unknown number. _ The area code seems familiar and she can’t place why. 

All the lazy and comfortable and perfect drains out of her body, replaced by tense confusion as she pokes on her glasses and answers.

“Hello?” The person on the other end clears her throat awkwardly.

“Richie? It's Mike.” Every last trace of tiredness is gone, she’s uncomfortably awake now, horribly aware of everything around her like the vaguely hopeful lilt to the woman’s voice and her breathing on the other end of the line as Richie tries desperately to think of any girls she knows named Mike. It feels  _ right  _ but she has no clue why.

“Mike? Where do I know you from?”

“Oh, I’d hoped you might… because you found Eddie… never mind,” The woman mentioning Eddie makes something itch in the back of Richie’s mind, familiarly warm but slightly scary at the same time, like taking a plunge off of a quarry before anyone else just because you can’t let a boy look braver than you, so you shove him to the side when his red hair streaks by and jump off first, “Richie?” She shakes off the weird memory and tunes back in.

“Sorry, who are you?”

“Mike Hanlon from Derry, Maine. I need you and Eddie to come back.” Oh.  _ Oh. _

For a second it feels like her throat is concaving upwards but she quickly realizes its bile. She scrambles out of bed, legs getting tangled in the comforter and she drags it halfway to the bathroom; knees hitting the tile in front of the toilet hard enough to bruise just in time to retch last night’s dinner into the bowl.

“ _ Oh fuck, Rich? _ ” Distantly she hears the shower curtain rattle and after a second the damp sleeves of Eddie’s robe are brushing her neck as her wife pulls back her hair.

But she isn’t focused on that, she’s focused on  _ Derry Maine Derry Maine Derry Maine _ .

“-chie what's wrong? Who were you on the phone with?” Shakily she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, Eddie groans in disgust but Richie can’t process it because when she turns around she feels dizzy.

There are two Eddies. Blurred lines between her wife, short hair still soapy and big brown eyes swimming with concern and a little girl, light brown hair split into too long too tight braids ( _ Richie chopped them off at the end of their 8th grade year at Eddie’s insistance, one big fuck you to Sonia Kaspbrak _ ), casted arm held close to her chest. She blinks hard and its just her Eddie staring down at her (but the other one, the small one, feels like her Eddie too, what the  _ fuck _ is happening?)

“ _ Mike Hanlon. _ ”

“What?”

“On the phone, I…  _ fuck _ ,” She twists back around and pukes in the toilet again, she hasn’t stressed puked in goddamn years, she’d forgotten how unplesant it was. Eddie storms out of the bathroom.

“ _ Hey asshole I don’t know who the fuck you are or what you said to my wife but-” _ Eddie rages in their room before cutting off with a choked noise, Richie drags herself off the floor and back into the bedroom. 

Eddie is standing shell shocked and stammering with Richie’s phone to her ear. Richie bends slightly to rest her head on her shoulder, rubbing up and down the terry cloth sleeves of Eddie’s robe as she tries to listen to the other end of the call. Eddie’s hand blocks out most of the sound, so she just kisses the back of it and waits, hoping for context she doesn’t think she’ll get.

“Why…  _ what _ ?” Richie supposes Eddie has really summed it up with that, half formed memories keep clogging up her rational thought and its making something throb dully behind her temples. She doesn't think she's ever been so confused.

“Okay. Goodbye.” Eddie hangs up, voice startlingly tight before tearing away from Richie back into the bathroom, she can hear the rattle of the medicine cabinet slamming into the wall.

“Where is it, where the  _ fuck is it _ ?” Eddie looks goddamn manic, painkiller bottles and cough syrup clattering into the sink as she tears through the shelves, stomach heaving in and out and shoulders struggling their way up and down as she wheezes through her rambly panic.

“What the hell are you looking for?”

“ _ I need my fucking inhaler! _ ” Richie’s stomach  _ drops _ .

“What? Eds you don’t need an inhaler!”

“Don’t  _ call me that _ !” Richie feels all of 12 years old and  _ something  _ has just happened and she’s trying to yank red plastic casing away from Eddie’s lips and she's grabbing it and painfully hissing through choked breaths that she  _ needs it _ even though she had told Richie to never let her use it again. 

But she’s 40 and she doesn’t know where the  _ fuck these memories are from  _ but she knows how to help Eddie Kaspbrak, its as easy as riding a bike (which suddenly feels even easier than it had when she went to bed last night).

She grabs her hands away from the cabinet, pulling her close and cupping her cheeks.

“Hey, baby,  _ hey _ you’re okay! Breathe with me, okay? Breathe-” This is familiar, a panic attack not an asthma attack,  _ it's not _ . So she breathes, slow and exaggerated, their chests pressed together so Eddie can feel it and eventually she follows, shaky at first but steadying as she calms down. After what feels like hours but is probably only a few minutes she’s collapsed against Richie, half washed hair soaking through her baggy sleep shirt.

“You okay?”

“Absolutley not, what the  _ fuck _ ?” Richie snorts, that's fair, her head is still aching from muddled memories that don’t make sense and her mouth still tastes like stomach acid.

“Did we… did we fucking know each other when we were younger?” She asks even though she knows the answer. Things are slotting in and out of place but the image of Eddie is sticking.

“Yeah…  _ fuck!  _ Why don’t we remember any of this  _ bullshit _ !” Richie doesn’t answer, the center of her hand almost stings from where it is pressed against Eddie’s, twin scars crisscrossing. She thinks they may have found their answer to the mystery of their slashed palms, there is no relief or hilarious coincidence like they’ve theorized about before, just dread. Cold and intense and nauseating. 

“Are we going?” It's a hollow question, they both know they will be in Derry by tonight. 

They both know they would rather be anywhere else in the world.

“We need to, don’t we?”

There is nothing Richie wants more than to be close to Eddie, touching Eddie, seeing Eddie right now, when she lets go of her hand she feels ungrounded, like she’s floating through half baked childhood experiences and confusion. But Eddie still needs to finish her shower and it is a long standing agreement in the Kaspbrak-Tozier household that showering together is gross and inconvenient. They do have a massive bathtub because they’re both relatively well off pretentious middle aged women and bathing together is much nicer than showering but as lovely as it would be to let Eddie sink against her as she washes the shampoo out of her hair and feels her wife’s muscles relax in the hot water but she absolutely does not have the patience to be that stationary right now. 

Instead she brings her laptop in the bathroom and orders the plane tickets as she sits criss cross on top of the closed toilet lid, listening to Eddie hum something sharp and discordant periodically under her breath.

She’d always done that, a weird held back way of singing in the shower that Richie liked to tease her for even if she found it fucking adorable.

_ The first time she’d heard her do it she’d been 14 and Eddie had tackled as they ran home in the middle of a storm because Richie had proclaimed the weather was wetter than she made Mrs. K’s- before she found herself face down directly into a puddle, Eddie shrieking for her to shut up (but she was laughing). _

_ Richie had dragged her down, what else was she supposed to do, and they had wrestled weakly for a bit until they were muddy and shamefaced, taking cover in the main hallway of Richie’s house, thoroughly chastised by a bemused Maggie Tozier who demanded they both clean up before being allowed to sit on any of her furniture. _

_ Eddie, who at this point was just assumed to be sleeping over, squeaked out apologies to her mother as they made their way to Richie’s room and cuffed Richie hard over the head and claimed the first shower once her door was closed. _

_ “You’re a goblin bastard Kaspbrak!” _

_ “That makes no fucking sense!” _

_ “Rachel Tozier if you sit on your bed I swear to GOD-” Her mother interrupts, amused but serious from all the way down the hall and the two girls make horrified eye contact, Richie freezing just inches from her rumpled comforter.  _

_ “Your mom is a goddamn psychic, I’m telling you!” Eddie hisses, making her way to the bathroom. _

_ “Or she has full time surveillance cameras set up here.” Richie makes a big show of waving cheesily to each corner and Eddie snorts before closing the door and the sound of running water makes itself apparent. _

_ Richie flops the back of her head against the door, ass on the floor because whether her mom is psychic or stalking her she isn’t going to test her. _

_ When Eddie starts to sing, muffled and choked, a bizarre mash up of one of Ben’s horrible boy band songs and what sounds like an original creation. _

_ Instantly Richie finds herself laughing but it tapers off quickly enough when she finds it is more endearing than embarrassing. _

_ Cute Cute Cute! _

_ The familiar soft discomfort mixed with burning longing bubbles up in her stomach and part of her wants to blast music from her walkman and block out Eddie’s dumb, adorable half singing but she can’t bring herself to. _

_ She’s fucked. _

_ Eventually Eddie turns off the water and opens the door, Richie is too distracted and the lack of anything behind her makes her fall backwards into the bathroom. Eddie grins down at her, towel twisted expertly over her hair and one of Richie’s t-shirts hanging almost fully over a pair of shorts she’d left there last time. _

_ To reiterate: Cute Cute Cute, Richie is fucked.  _

_ “You’re an idiot, Rich.” _

_ “I’m your idiot though!” She expects Eddie to roll her eyes, brush off the comment and beep her. _

_ “Yeah, yeah, you’re my idiot.” She says instead, far fonder than Richie knows how to deal with. _

_ “I… I am going to shower now! Don’t miss me too much!” _

_ “You wish Trashmouth!” _

The suddenly clear memory makes her head spin.

She has no goddamn clue how she could have  _ ever  _ forgotten Eddie Kaspbrak, she doesn’t get what the hell is going on.

Later, Eddie, suddenly far more neurotic than Richie has seen her be in a  _ while _ , packs up her suitcase. She keeps her hand wrapped tightly Richie’s regardless of how inconvenient it seemed to be as she awkwardly stretched over to her dresser and to the other side of the bed. Richie just lets herself be dragged around, taking comfort in the fact that at least Eddie feels the need to be close too right now, she doesn’t think she could handle it if her wife wasn’t equally as clingy. Especially not in the midst of this weird ass mysterious chaos.

“Holy  _ shit _ I married Richie Fucking Tozier! My fucking standards got lower as I got older.” Eddie exclaims eventually and despite the weirdness Richie collapses into giggles.

“You can’t return me now that you remembered shit, it’s been too long, you probably lost my receipt so you’re stuck with me!” Eddie’s sarcastic smirk drops, instantly serious as she scrambles up onto the bed, “I… I was just kidding."

“I know,” Eddie cups one cheek and pulls her forward, pressing their foreheads together, “But need to make sure you know that you aren’t getting rid of me that easily, baby.”

Richie feels some of the bizarre tension drain from her shoulders.

“We’re gonna be okay, right?”

“‘Course we will Eds! It’s just a… reunion, nothing is gonna go wrong!”

She hates how much that feels like a lie.

Across the country (and the world, in Bill’s case), the other Losers get the call.

Bill Phillips (pen name still Denbrough much to Andrew’s chagrin) is on the set for her new movie, it's shooting in England and her husband has been overwhelmingly obnoxious about how it's wonderful “for his process” to be back home and hinting that they should move there after filming wraps up. 

She is actually grateful for the call before she answers it, Andrew had been on a tirade that she should rewrite the ending so his character is the hero and she’s going to throttle him if he says one more time “Love, the only way you could save the ending is by having me do it.”

It takes her a minute to process how the name Mike Hanlon makes something bubble up in her stomach, and it doesn’t take long for whatever it is to turn sour. Georgie.

_ Georgie. Georgie. How the fuck could she forget Georgie. _

She isn’t quite sure how long she sits there before Andrew comes in rambling about her needing to change something else in the script and freezes, asking horrified if she is  _ crying _ and looking horribly uncomfortable as he holds her hand and asks what is wrong.

She doesn’t know what to tell him, how to possibly explain that she forgot about her dead little brother she didn’t remember having and that she is pretty sure every book she’s ever written has been influenced by the way he died  _ even though she can’t fucking remember the way he died. _

So she runs. The plane ticket is ludicrously expensive for a last minute ride from London to Maine but she doesn’t even care.

How could she forget Georgie? 

_ GeorgieGeorgieGeorgie. _

Beverly Marsh steels himself once he hangs up, puts as many of his belongings as he can fit in one bag without waking up his wife, wincing as the heavy duffle tugs on his recently dislocated shoulder. 

He’s tense the whole wait in the airport, flinching everytime he spots a woman with short, dark hair, or if he’s being honest, any woman in general. 

Well, except for a beautiful but awkward looking lady who overtips at the airport coffee shop and accidentally drops a folded piece of paper from her wallet. He feels, bizarrely, safer when he returns it to her and their hands brush, like just being near her soothes his nerves. He tries to piece together why she looks so achingly familiar but she’s gone before he can figure it out. 

He doesn’t fully relax until his plane is in the air. Curious, he digs through his carry on to see what he actually managed to shove in there in his rush and unearths an old postcard, a faded poem printed neatly on the back. He remembers putting it in there years ago, knowing it was the one place Tanya wouldn’t think to search through. He was unfoundedly attached to the crumpled letter and couldn’t bring himself to throw it away, even though he knew if she found a love poem to him she didn’t write (she _would_ _never_ write) he wouldn’t like the consequences. 

He spends the entire flight reading the three lines over and over, trying desperately to connect the words to a face but the only one he seems to be able to conjure is the woman in the coffeeshop. 

Ben Hanscom is in a meeting in Chicago when she gets the call, she steps outside to take it and halfway through a faded scar on her stomach she hadn’t noticed in years begins to burn. 

She walks out of the building and just drives in a daze to the hotel room she’d been renting while working on the plans for a new project, no one calls her asking where she went. She’s already bought her plane tickets and packed a bag when she thinks to text her coworker apologizing for her abrupt absence. He responds with  **oh haha did u leave? damn I didn’t even notice, so I think ur good!**

In the airport, feeling a little sorry for herself as she nurses a hangover, she wonders absently whether anyone would actually care if she just boarded a plane to another country, well maybe this Mike she was flying five hours for would. The idea makes her feel at least a bit happier even though her memories of Mike are still concerningly blurred. She picks up the crappy coffee she ordered on her phone, taking out her wallet to drop a handful of cash in the tip jar (they had to deal with unhappy airport customers, they definitely deserved it). As she’s folding it back into her pocket, a kind eyed man with short cut ginger curls and tense shoulders calls out for her, jogging out of his place in line. 

“You dropped this!” She thanks him and their hands touch as she grabs the paper. Ben blames the spark that ignites in her chest on the fact that she hasn’t had much genuine human connection in the past… Well, an upsetting length of time. She leaves before she can think too hard over how a random airport man being vaguely nice to her makes her stomach lurch. It isn’t until she’s boarded and finds her seat that she unfolds the weathered page and wonders precisely who Beverly Marsh is and why she kept his signature.

Patrick Uris-Blum is excited, he and his wife have finalized their vacation plans, it's taken forever but he’s finally convinced her to use two whole weeks of vacation time for the trip and they just bought their tickets, three months in advance. Which is honestly sort of late for them, but this trip has been years in the making, the biggest one since their honeymoon. 

Stan tends to have a very specific and thorough bathing schedule but today she’s taking an early bath which is weirding him out, he’s too hyped up on the prospect of their trip to just do nothing with his curiosity and he really wants to be close to his wife so he heads to the bathroom. 

The door is locked, which makes him feel more nervous than he can even comprehend, because his wife in almost 10 years of marriage has never once locked the door when she’s taking a bath. 

“ _ Stan? _ ” She doesn’t answer and the nervous feeling mounts to panic. He sprints to the kitchen, digging through their key drawer and thanking God that they took the time to organize it so thoroughly when he unearths the previously unused bathroom key in a few seconds.

He unlocks the door and scrambles in just in time to see his Stan, his Samantha, his  _ wife _ place the razor at the top of her left forearm, right arm already pooling red into the bathwater.

She snaps her head up, dropping the razor as he  _ screams. _

She’s  _ sobbing _ and  _ bleeding  _ and he doesn’t  _ understand _ , they’d just been so happy. The confirmation page for their plane tickets was still sitting on their printer, they had a celebratory bottle of wine already on the kitchen table, what  _ happened? _

Who the hell was she talking on the phone with before she took her too early bath and what the hell did they say?

She sobs out something about a clown and Maine and weak links and a painting crawling out of its frame to eat her, Pat just presses the towel down on her forearm harder, terrified she lost more blood than he thought and desperate for the ambulance to arrive. 

He presses tear soaked, horrified kisses to the tiny scars circling her face he’s never noticed before but she keeps rubbing at too hard, and tells her he loves her he loves her  _ he loves her _ as her blood soaks through the towel onto his hands from a cut made intentionally to kill. It makes him feel sick when he thinks about it.

It isn’t until they're in a hospital room, her arm tightly bandaged and hand held so tightly in his he’s worried he’s hurting her (but he feels like if he lets go she’ll float away, he can’t lose her he can’t he can’t he can’t), when she relays the same exact story, just much more lucid and lined with more shame he refuses to let her feel over this, that he realizes she is telling the truth.

She seems surprised at how readily he believes her, he just leaves a soft kiss on the wrist of her right arm and tells her she’s never given him any reason not to trust her. That she still hasn’t.

That trust is why he reluctantly signs her release forms, even as the doctor gives him a disapproving glare that makes him feel like the worst husband in the world.

It's why he buys her a ticket and drives her to the airport, even if he cries again when she presses her forehead to his and makes him  _ swear _ he won’t follow her to Derry.

It’s why he kisses her as hard as he can and promises he’ll be right outside the gate to pick her up when she comes home.

She promises to call him every night and kisses him back just as hard and then she leaves.

He can’t help but feel like he just sent his wife to her death as he checks into his hotel near the airport and hires a cleaning service just to clean the bathtub.

He doesn’t think he can handle being home without Stan right now, and it makes him feel better to know he can get to her gate as fast as possible when she comes back to him.

Because he trusts his wife, his strong, brave, wonderful wife, and he _ knows _ she will come back to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time skip Babey! It's Derry time! (we're probably going to get some flashbacks to stuff we missed in the time skip so dw)  
> Also I did not have the emotional capacity to kill Stan. She's Alive and she's Coming Back and I fucking Love Her.


	17. Welcome to Derry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Losers Club reunites, Pennywise isn't very happy that Richie and Eddie broke his rules and found eachother early.  
> (TW! Gay slurs and also they discuss Stan's attempt)

Eddie drove their rental car from the airport, complaining the whole time about how it was a piece of shit they were overcharged for as Richie teased her that she said that about every car she wasn’t personally involved in maintaining. 

She drove with one hand, the other held firmly in both of Richie’s who was fidgeting with her fingers the way she tended to when she was nervous, it calmed both of them down at this point.

She’d felt  _ off _ since the call, shifting uncomfortably the whole plane ride because  _ shit  _ planes were just cesspits of disease weren’t they? And she did not pack nearly adequate enough medication to deal with it if she got sick, she didn’t even have an inhaler!    
But she hadn’t had an inhaler in over a decade and didn’t have fucking asthma so she had no fucking clue why she felt so anxious.

It’s an awkward ride, the absurdity of both of them growing up together and not remembering a single second of it until a childhood friend called hanging between them like a wet fitted sheet; cold and unpleasant and impossible to even begin to understand how to fold it neatly so things made sense again. She’s sure that analogy could use some work but just as she’s mulling it over Richie’s hands rip from hers and she finds herself immediately recoiling so both sit tightly on the wheel.

_ Welcome to Derry  _ the sign they pass reads.

She didn’t feel very welcome, she felt small and confused and incapable of touching her wife in any way that could even feasibly be viewed as intimate.

She hated it,  _ fuck _ , she hated it so much but the words to convey it were stuck in her throat, buried under mounting dread and Richie’s now unoccupied fingers drumming an inconsistant beat on the dashboard.

While the Townhouse Inn was as much of a shithole as ever, the Jade of the Orient was a much nicer restaurant that Eddie ever remembers Derry having, not that she was allowed to go to many when she was younger because her mother was scared about her catching something. She pulls into the parking lot, the farthest spot she can find from the entrance because she is definitely going to need a minute. Richie notices, of course she notices, and quickly entwines their hands and tugs Eddie’s up to kiss the back of it.

Fucking sappy, perfect, lovely  _ bitch _ , knowing how to make Eddie calm down.

She lets out a rattling breath, “Ready?”

“Abso-fucking-lutly not, lets go!”

They break apart to get out of the car and when they remeet on the same side Richie’s hands are staunchly in her jacket pockets. Part of Eddie understands, there are some memories, unbidden and unwanted bubbling up in the back of her mind.

She finds herself staring too long at the ends of Richie’s hair, she thinks it used to be longer than were it was brushing the tops of her shoulders now, that she’d started to grow it out when they were in middle school. She remembers with sudden clarity  _ pulling off the knit winter hat tugged low over her ears. It’s not Richie’s hat or at least she’s never seen her wear it and it's the middle of June, way too warm for a hat even for Eddie who is forced to wear her thick winter coat until the temperature is above 60 degrees. There is another girl, curls neatly pulled back into a ponytail and her clothing perfectly pressed, who is standing next to her with a hand comfortingly on Richie’s shoulder, Eddie can’t place her but she feels like she should be able to, the girl seems terribly familiar. _

_ “Eddie wait!” The girl cries but she’s too late, Eddie doesn’t think hard enough on the fact that Richie’s hair would never be able to fit entirely under the hat which now dangles forgotten in her hand as she gapes at Richie’s sloppily shorn too short curls. _

_ Richie yanks the hat back, shoving it on her head in a silent panic. To Eddie’s overwhelming shock and horror her eyes are watery. _

_ “Richie what-” She’s cut off when someone shoves her and the other girl, face still indiscernible, away and spins Richie around, she blanches. _

_ “Ain’t she pretty girls, dyke finally looks the part!” The boy grins and wiggles his arm in their direction, a thick, sloppily braided bracelet of what looks concerningly like black hair wrapped around his wrist. _

_ Eddie thinks she punched him after that. She gets suspended for a week and her mother loses her goddamn mind over her bruised knuckles but it's worth it. _

_ It doesn’t erase the thick markered letters painting the locker room stalls that spell out the kind of insults only middle schoolers could find entertaining, things like  _ **_rachel tozier is a carpet muncher_ ** _ and  _ **_RICHIE ‘DYKE’ TOZIER_ ** _ but now there are more that add her in the picture  _ **_Eddie and Richie are LESBOS_ ** _ and  _ **_RT ATE OUT EK_ ** _. _

She uncomfortably jams her own hands into her sweatshirt pockets. Yeah, she understands, Derry doesn’t feel safe because Derry  _ isn’t _ safe for people like them.

She wants to get right fucking back in their rental car and drive until they’re out of this shit hole and she feels safe enough to kiss her wife in public.

But just as she’s about to suggest it Richie loudly makes their presence known to a woman and a man who sort of seem like they’re having an intimate moment.

“Damn. You two look sexy as hell, what the fuck happened to me?” 

“ _ Richie- _ ” She begins longsufferingly, elbowing her hard because they have  _ talked  _ about how her self deprecating jokes aren’t funny and also they have no clue who the hell these people are. But then the man is laughing loudly and hugging Richie so enthusiastically she lifts slightly off the ground and she realizes shakily that it’s Bev.  _ Bev. Holy shit Bev! _

“Shut up Trashmouth, you look fucking  _ great _ ! Eddie!” He’s hugging her then, and some of her trepidation about Derry leaks away in his arms.

Something dully rings in her memory about this town being safer when they’re all together.

Richie is all but harassing the gorgeous woman who Eddie assumes is Beverly’s wife, which makes her a bit too annoyed for a person who also brought her wife to dinner (but Richie is a Loser so it’s  _ different _ ).

She’s raring to passive aggressively introduce herself when Richie catches her eye and unsubtly and distastefully mouths ‘ _ BEN _ ’ while curving her hands in and out before miming grabbing two breasts. Ben flushes red and Bev chokes out a slightly laugh slurred “Beep beep!” and Richie stops, cackling something about a throwback.

“Oh my god,” Eddie breathes in reverent realization, “I am fucking  _ using that again _ get  _ ready! _ ” She crows and Richie groans dramatically into her shoulder, both missing the confused look Ben and Bev share at her statement.

Ben steps up and wraps her arms around Eddie, who quickly returns the favor. Ben had always given the best hugs and she’s glad that hasn’t changed.

Richie, too, must feel far more comfortable now that they’ve seen two of the others, she bumps her with her shoulder and shifts closer, locking their pinkies as they walk into the restaurant.

“So did you two meet up at the airport or something?” Bev asks, turning back to look at them as Ben goes to talk to the woman standing at the podium, but it’s clear she’s listening more to their conversation (More to what Bev is saying, at least, which Richie tells her by rolling her eyes so hard that Eddie is worried she’ll hurt herself when neither are looking because they’re too busy looking at each other).

“Something like that!” Richie answers too quickly, which is weird considering, yes, to be fair they  _ did  _ meet up at the airport. 15 years ago in California when Eddie left her emotionally abusive fiance, but she is  _ sure _ that wasn’t what Beverly was talking about.

She goes to explain but the waitress has led them to the room and Mike looks up to them with unbearably hopeful eyes and Bill is there being  _ Bill Fucking Denbrough  _ so that goes out the window. 

“ _ Hey _ look at you guys!” She stammers brightly and Richie snorts, looking far too unapologetic when she glares at her. She unlocks their pinkies and hugs Bill  _ hard _ because now that she sees her things feel  _ right _ . This is Big Bill, their leader, and her  _ best friend _ . 

Bill had always been her best friend, before they were the Losers, before there was Richie, it was BillandEddie. Bill had been the only one her mother could stand (which to be fair was probably because she was a relatively polite, white, catholic, probably straight girl), the one she was allowed to go to sleepovers with at all times, the one who always gave her advice and support even though she was unobservant enough to rarely have a good idea of what was actually going on.

Bill who she’s realizing she definitely had a crush on when she was younger and too repressed to notice. 

She realizes blankly as Mike claps her on the shoulder that she’s lost sight of her wife, which is never a good thing because Richie is an idiot. Her worries are answered when a loud gong ring echoes through the room.

“ _ This meeting of the Losers Club has officially BEGUN! _ ” 

God, she fucking loves her stupid wife.

Eventually they all sit, the one unoccupied chair to Richie’s left because that is the only thing that truly makes sense, they don’t even discuss it, just settle comfortably into what feels like assigned seating.

She hooks her ankle around her wife’s under the table.

“ _ Hey, why aren’t you eating? _ ” Richie whispers after about a half hour of comfortable conversation and chinese food. Eddie lowers her drink slowly, she hadn’t quite realized she had been avoiding the food piled around the table with the exception of one ripped up dumpling cooling on her plate.

“ _ I can’t- _ ” Oh. She froze before she could say what she had been thinking. Richie seems to realize, pausing uncomfortably before piling half her plate onto Eddies.

She wasn’t allergic to peanut oil or soy or cashews or any of this shit she’d been avoiding because she was worried it would kill her. What the  _ fuck _ . Her stomach churned as she shakily swallowed a mouthful of noodles, she’d known for over a decade that she had none of the allergies her mother and Myran had made up, she hadn’t given them a second thought in  _ years. _

Derry was fucking with her and she didn’t like it at all, she gripped Richie’s hand under the table, hoping, ridculously, that no one notices how her wife’s thumb is rubbing the back of hers.

Someone orders a round of shots for the table.

“So Benny, _babe_ , is becoming the hottest person I’ve ever seen part of the architect business or…” Richie mulls loudly after a while when a conversation on careers finally leaves Bill who they had been nonstop roasting for how objectively terrible her book endings are for the upper end of fifteen minutes.

“ _ Okay  _ so I lost a few pounds but-”

“No, dude, that isn’t even it, you are so fucking hot.” Eddie says before thinking about it and somehow Ben’s blush deepens to an even darker red as the whole group chimes in agreement.

“Oh come on you’re embarrassing her!” Bev cuts in as they shower Ben with forcefully loud compliments and she stress chugs her drink so fast that Eddie is worried she’s going to choke on it.

“She’s so hot though!”

“I know! But she-” Ben buries her face in her hands, cutting Bev off with a loud: “So is Stan coming or what?”

It feels like someone sucked all of the air out of the room.

_ Stan _ . That was the girl in her memory from when someone cut off all of Richie’s hair, that was the SU embroidered on the tag of the absurdly ancient but worn wonderfully soft sleep shirt Richie refuses to throw away and Eddie steals often, that was one of her best friends in the entire world throughout her whole childhood. Samantha Uris. Stan.

Richie’s fingers tighten around hers, hands suddenly shaking. The conversation stilts awkwardly around whether or not Stan is going to show up, any comfortable camradire that had been regained slipping away.

“I… called her, I don’t know if she’s coming.” Mike offers weakly and Richie squeezes harder.

“Why are we so focused on Stan,  _ eh _ , did she save your life? Like that time with Bowers  _ holy shit _ !” It had started as a diversion to cut the tension but the memory decks her in the face out of left field, apparently the same goes for Ben who is now staring at her wide eyed, one hand lightly resting on her stomach.

“Oh  _ yeah,  _ you literally stitched me back together!”

“Eds,  _ please _ tell me you became a doctor.” 

“No, no, I own my own driving business, actually!” Richie squeezed her hand and released it, leaning on her hand to watch as Eddie rambled about her company to the table. Richie always said she loved it when Eddie talked about her job because she got ‘overly enthusiastic’ (which Eddie really didn’t understand until Richie was on tour and she spent a full day watching interviews that solely consisted of her getting overly enthusiastic about her comedy. It was not embarassing, as Eddie had taken the term to mean before, but fucking a _ dorable  _ when her partner was the one doing it).

“ _ Wait _ Bev! Didn’t you make me a dress?” Richie cuts in at some point as the conversation redirects to his fashion brand, the topics keep ping ponging so rapidly Eddie can barely keep up. That might be because she's drunk.

“Oh  _ shit _ for the Emmys, right? Thats fucking  _ weird _ !”

“Oh my god, Rich, was that... you? That one time, I was there I think and...” Bill says, grinning wide all of a sudden, “It was, wasn’t it? Congrats man!”

“Thanks! Only good red carpet dress I’ve ever worn, Bev, honestly.” Eddie remembers that dress, it had photographed well and been on lists for the best dresses of the awards for weeks after but that wasn’t what stuck with her. She remembered that dress more as the one Richie wore as she spun around her in their living room, laughing about how wide it twirled and getting teased for how hard she was trying not to sit on the skirt during the ride there and not caring as Richie slept across her lap on the way back home once the awards and parties were over.

“Well if you ever want another Rogan-Marsh original let me know, I’ll set you up!” Richie beams, leaning across the table to lazily clink their glasses together.

“Rogan? Is that your business partner or…” Bill trails and Bev’s easy smile slips a little. 

“Um… wife, actually!” He raises his hand to show the gold band on his ring finger, if Eddie was paying attention she would have noted how Mike seemed to pay more attention at the topic, how her jaw clenched a little at the mention of Beverly’s wife, like she found out some things when researching her friends lives she didn’t quite like. 

But Eddie wasn’t looking at Mike, she was looking at Bill who looked a bit too put out for a married woman and Ben, whose face had crumpled strangely into something far off and small.

“What’s  _ the _ Mrs. Marsh like?” Ben eventually snaps out of her weird stupor to ask with a weak smile.

“We hyphenated, actually, but um, Tanya is… she’s  _ great _ !” Bev grins tightly, something about his tone makes Eddie feel weird, in a different way then she felt when Bill unenthusiastically said her husband was a ‘good actor’ like that was the answer they were looking for when Ben asked about who she married,  _ that _ had felt sad and sort of awkward, but Bev’s false enthusiasm scared her.

It felt far too familiar, like defending that Myran truly understood her and took care of her to a concerned coworker who noticed he kept calling her out of work, she swallowed the bad taste it left in her mouth.

“I think she did the fitting for that dress, must have been having an  _ off day, _ then.” Richie says sharply, like she picked up on it too, and Eddie kicks her under the table. It really is not the time or place to be examining their childhood friend’s marriages. Luckily Bev doesn’t seem to be too offended, just swallows a too big sip of his drink, Bill seems to notice the tense lines of his shoulders and shifts the attention.

“What about you Trashmouth, you married?” Eddie can’t hide the laughter that bubbles up, what the  _ fuck _ ? They really don’t know… a quick glance to Richie who is practically vibrating in excitement tells her to just go with it. If anything at least it’s going to be entertaining, clearly Mike agrees, hiding her smirk into the rim of her glass and leaning back to observe.

“There is  _ no way  _ Richie’s married!” Bev chokes on his beer and Eddie can’t help but feel offended on her wife’s behalf, even if Richie herself looks like she’s having a goddamn field day.

“I got married!”

“Really?” Bill leans forward, head cocked. 

“You guys really didn’t hear that I got married?”

“ _ No! _ ” Three voices ring over each other, Eddie shifts a little in her seat, preening slightly in preparation, there is nothing either of them like more than talking about their relationship.

“Yeah! Eddie’s mom and I are very, very happy together!”  _ Oh fuck her _ .

“Oh FUCK you!” She shouts over the explosion that rings around the room, Mike looks like she’s practically going to piss herself with how hard she’s laughing.

“Fuck me yourself!” The laughter immediately muffles to giggles, everyone is clearly watching, probably anticipating Eddie stabbing Richie with a chopstick or something similar in nature. Which is fair, but she’s gotten used to her wife’s bullshit and her tolerance is slightly higher than it was at age 12.

“I want a divorce.” She deadpans and Richie’s eyes gleam with delight, she loves it when Eddie plays along. 

“ _ No way! _ ” Bev breathes out, wide eyed and lightly hitting a bemused Ben’s shoulder without looking.

Eddie brings their entwined hands up above the table top, Richie dramatically swinging their arms around to show off the rings.

“Oh, thank god,  _ finally _ !” Ben cackles and Richie flips her off.

“Wait… what?” Bill, good old Bill, still looks hopelessly lost and Richie snorts before pulling her close and kissing her. She isn’t sure if it’s the fact that she’s drunk or that the Losers are there but whatever was holding her back from kissing Richie once they entered Derry seems to have disappeared.

“ _ Get a room! _ ” Bev cheers and the rest of the Losers whistle and clap because they’re  _ assholes _ . 

“I’ve got to say, about goddamn time.” Someone snarks loudly from the room’s entrance and they both break apart, slightly panicked, to look at the woman in the doorway. Dark curls pulled neatly back and sweater clad arms crossed as she leans against the frame, one eyebrow carefully cocked.

“ _ STAN! _ ” Richie tumbles out of her chair and practically tackles her into a hug, Stan’s carefully composed demeanor crumbles as she stumbles into the hold and snorts out ‘ _ Hi Rich!’ _

Eddie is suddenly reminded that when she and Bill were walking around as BillandEddie they were joined by StanandRichie, both inexplicably close and good at balancing Richie’s annoyingness with Stan’s uptightness and vice versa. 

She’s too focused on her wife and Stan to notice that Bev looks like someone has just punched him.

“Sorry I’m late!” Stan exclaims after getting through their crowd of relatively drunken greetings and Bev finally gets up from his seat and crushes her into a tight hug and whispering loudly, 

“ _ But you’re here! _ ” 

Richie excitedly sounds the gong again and distantly Eddie is worried their waitress is going to come in and ask them to leave but that really isn’t her top focus right now.

“So was that what I thought it was or are Eddie and Richie drunker than I thought?” 

“Both?” Ben comments and everyone around the table nods in agreement. Stan lowly high fives Richie under the table, it could have been subtle if Richie wasn’t quite so enthusiastic about it.

“ _ So _ Stanny, Staniel, Stanmantha-”

“ _ What _ ?”

“How’s your life going?” With the appearance of Stan and their sort-of-secret out in the open (and the alcohol, but Eddie knows how clingy both of them can be completely sober) Richie seems to have lost most of her inhibition, shoving her chair close and leaning fully against Eddie, not that the other minds.

“Life’s going pretty well, I live in Atlanta, I’m an accountant- okay  _ fuck you guys _ !” She breaks off when the Losers begin to giggle, Eddie claps a hand over Richie’s mouth before she can say something stupid even if they’re all thinking it. She licks her palm which is fucking  _ gross _ and Eddie wipes it back on her hair, getting distracted with running her fingers in it, so she supposes that Richie won this one.

“You’re married, right?” Mike comments idily, Eddie focuses back in, concerned she’s about to hear another one of her childhood best friends excuse an unhappy marriage, but Stan’s whole face lights up.

“ _ Yes _ ! Pat is  _ incredible _ -” It takes Eddie a few minutes of listening to Stan’s enthusiastic raving about her husband to look at the other Losers, other than Richie who is listening comfortably against Eddie’s shoulder, they’re all watching with some sort of tragic longing in their eyes that Eddie is far too drunk to figure out further than the fact that it makes her sad. 

The night lulls comfortably until Bill asks precisely  _ why  _ Mike called them all back here and things unravel faster than Eddie can keep up with because Mike is saying some bullshit about their missing memories, about never leaving Derry, when Bev chokes out “ _ Pennywise _ ” and Eddie forgets how to breathe.

Richie grabs her arm so tightly Eddie thinks she might cut off her circulation and Stan chokes out a sob, Eddie thinks she is saying  _ something  _ over Mike who is still attempting to tell them why they need to  _ stay and fight Pennywise, they need to fight IT and her arm hurts and she can’t breathe she needs her inhaler she can’t breathe. _

“Hey  _ Eds,  _ baby, come on, breathe with me, come on.” Richie is taking her cheeks with her shaking hands, foreheads pressed together until she collapses into her chest.

“Everything about this is fucking  _ stupid _ ! These’s fortune cookies are fucking stupid mine just says  _ and _ !” Ben chokes in what feels like uncharacteristic rage, throwing down the slip of paper and burying her face in her arms.

“ _ What _ ? M-mine says… _ broke _ ?” Bill stammers.

“Mine says  _ the rules. _ ” Bev sounds choked and Eddie breaks away from Richie’s hold to look out at the Losers who have all poured their chaos into intense focus on the small lines of paper Bill has begun to line on the middle of the table.

“ _ Lose _ ?” Stan questions and she begins to crack her own cookie, pausing slightly as Richie chokes in a sharp inhale before remaining uncomfortably silent, part of her wants to turn to her wife, see if she’s okay but suddenly her paper get unearthed and she feels like someone has ripped her heart out through her esophagus. 

She thinks Mike says  _ they _ . She thinks they’re fighting over the papers being a message.

She thinks Richie is still silent next to her instead of working her word into the puzzle.

But she can’t focus on it. All her senses are fuzzed out like television static except her eyesight, fully set on the tiny paper in her quivering fingers.

_ Richie _

Why did it say Richie.  _ Fuck why did it say Richie. _

Next to her Richie whispers  _ fuck this _ and throws her slip of paper in the center of the table.

“Why does it say Eddie, Mike. This isn’t fucking  _ funny, why the fuck does it say Eddie _ ?” That breaks her halfway out of her panic. 

“ _ Richie- _ ” Mike starts but Stan gently cuts her off, “What does yours say, Eddie.”

“I hate this. I hate this so much.” She places hers next to Richie’s. 

_ Richie. _

_ Eddie. _

She’s always liked how their names look written next to each other, but she has never wanted them to be further apart than she did now.

She snaps away from the papers, pulling Richie against her chest to rest her head on her shoulder, Richie leans in heavily, whole body shaking as they watch their friends sort the slips out.

**_Richie and Eddie lose they broke the rules_ **

Everyone is looking at them. Richie looks like she’s going to puke.

“What the  _ hell  _ does that mean what fucking  _ rules _ ?” Is the only thing she can choke out before the cookie bowl starts shaking and everything goes to shit.

She buries her face in Richie’s jacket and chokes out “ _ I want to go home _ ” feeling horribly childish but she really doesn’t care.

_ Richie and Eddie lose. _

Richie shouts her name and swats the air behind her.

_ They broke the rules. _

Pennywise is sending a message and things are flying in the air and everyone is screaming and she can’t  _ breathe _ .

And then it's silent.

Stan asks for the check.

“What the  _ fuck was that _ ? What  _ fucking rules _ ?” Richie snaps the second they’re back in the parking lot, grabbing Mike by her shirt collar, Eddie agrees too much with her anger to stop her.

“I don’t  _ know _ ! You… you found each other? IT wanted us to be unhappy and forget each other, by finding each other anyway you broke IT’s rules.” Richie shoves her away, a sharp laugh Eddie doesn’t recognize breaking through her lips.

“Fucking fantastic. Really  _ awesome  _ reunion Mike but we’re fucking going home.”

“Wait no you  _ can’t! _ ” Mike sounds desperate and really Eddie wants to feel bad for her but she fucking can’t becuase Eddie really doesn’t want to die becuase she found her wife before the shitty clown’s abritrary time limit was up. She can’t even begin to think about Richie dying.

“Richie… other people are going to die.” Ben adds shakily and Richie screams into Eddie’s shoulder for a second before snapping her head back up.

“ _ People die every fucking day! _ Sorry I’m not going to let my fucking wife be one of them! So I’m going back to the townhouse to get our stuff and then we’re fucking leaving!” She starts to lead Eddie away and she lets herself be dragged, normally she’d be sort of annoyed at Richie for just making her decision for her but she’s still reeling from seeing Richie’s name in her fortune cookie.

“Eddie! Come  _ on you guys made a promise _ !” 

“Sorry Mike but I made that promise when I was  _ twelve _ , I’m not going to die for it.” Eddie snaps, ignoring the other Losers and Mike’s stammering shouts of her name as she climbs into the driver's seat and pulls out.

Halfway through the silent drive Richie chokes out something she can’t make out.

“What?”

“ _ Pull over! _ ” She swerves into the grass, barely in park when Richie tumbles half out of her door and violently vomits on the ground, straining her seatbelt so hard it locks when she coughs out the last of her bile and wipes her mouth on her sleeve before pulling herself back up and falling against the seat for a second before unbuckling.

“Baby, hey, it’s alright, you’re alright.” She murmurs uselessly as she unbuckles her seatbelt and rubs Richie’s back from where she's breathing heavily in and out with her head in between her knees. She plants a kiss on her shoulder, tugging Richie upright, and leans back into her own seat.

“You okay?”

“ _ No. _ ” Her voice is wobbly and small, way too small for  _ her  _ Richie. She pulls her close and kisses the side of her head hard before pulling back onto the road. 

“We’re gonna be okay.” She says it with far more certainty than she really feels and Richie nods too hard.

“ _ Yeah _ ,  _ yeah we’re gonna be okay _ .”

**-**

Ben is already trying to talk to Bev at the bar when Stan finally gets to the townhouse, something worried and final in her voice as she demands he speak to her. Stan feels bad for interrupting when poor Ben is trying so very hard, really she does, but Bev had hugged her like he thought he was never going to see her again and held her wrists for a second too long before breaking apart.

Samantha Uris has only ever really trusted two men in her entire life, Patrick Blum and Beverly Marsh, and right now she thinks these two men are the only one who know she tried to kill herself yesterday. She knows why Pat knows, as much as it fucking  _ killed  _ her that she’d forced him see that, it had happened and there was nothing she could do to change it. But she had to know why the fuck Beverly Marsh, who she hadn’t talked to in  _ decades _ , seemed to know exactly what she’d done in her bathtub.

Why Beverly Marsh had realized at the same exact second as her what they had fought 27 years ago.

“Bev  _ talk to me _ , what aren’t you  _ telling us _ ?”

“How’d you know?” She asks from the door and both snapped their heads to her, startled, like they’d forgotten the rest of them were there.

“Know… know  _ what _ , Stan?” 

“Don’t be fucking cute, you know what.” She tugged back her sleeve, wincing at Ben’s gentle gasp as she realized what the bandage wrapped around her wrist means. 

“ _ Fuck _ .” Someone mumbles in the doorway behind her, _ Richie _ her mind helpfully supplies, but she ignores it.

“How the  _ fuck  _ did you know Beverly.”

“I…I knew because I’ve seen us all die.” 

“ _ What _ ?” Richie chokes, walking in the room, Stan feels herself gravitate closer to her. She’s shaking and her breath reeks of puke, which Stan thinks is fair, if her or her spouse’s name was hidden in murder fortune cookies she’d be losing it too.

“Richie I just need you to bring down your shit and we can go.” Eddie rambles absently as her suitcase clanks down the stairs, in seconds Richie’s bizarrely familiar warmth is gone as she books it up the stairs and grabs her wife’s hand.

Stan doesn’t have time to appreciate that at least two of her friends seem to have even vaguely happy lives because Beverly is explaining that if they don’t kill the clown they’re going to die.

Stan knew this, in the back of her mind she always knew that was the case, because she hadn’t been caught in the deadlights like Bev but she had seen them. They didn’t give her prophetic nightmares or anything like that, they just gave her fear and the idea to take one of Pat’s straight razors to her wrist so she wouldn’t drag the rest of her friends down with her weakness.

“So Bev… y-you saw Stan…” Bill starts awkwardly, and the room quiets. 

“ _ Yes. _ But she didn’t… she didn’t make it to Derry.” Bev chokes and Mike looks horribly guilty, like she’s going to cry as she grips the arms of her chair and Stan can’t deal with the way everyone seems to be darting around the topic.

“I tried to kill myself, we can say it. I remembered enough to be afraid and I wanted to give you the best chance by taking out the weakest link.” Richie grabs her hand and squeezes it hard.

“Fuck that, Stan. You aren’t the weakest link, what the  _ fuck _ .” Her voice wavers dangerously close to tears and if the second she saw Pat in the doorway of her bathroom hadn’t told her that she was making a mistake that would have been enough to convince her. Richie Tozier has never cried easily.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” She says softly, squeezing Richie’s hand back.

“So what? If we leave… we die?” Eddie chokes after a second and Richie’s other hand finds her wife’s shoulder.

“Horribly.”

Even though she had an idea of what they were dealing with, actually hearing it and seeing her friends break down around her makes her stomach churn and it doesn’t settle until literal hours later when Ben tumbles through the forest floor and they follow her into their clubhouse.

The clubhouse feels so much safer than any other place in Derry had, honestly it feels safer than her own living room did when she was talking on the phone with Mike, she doesn’t know why but she knows it is  _ safe _ . It’s clear the other’s feel the same way and something relaxed and comfortable falls back over them that hasn’t been there since they were  _ kids _ . 

Eddie beans her in the face with a tiny rubber ball and any rose tinted fondness about their childhood drains quickly into her much more comfortable constant state of slight frustration.

Ben looks a little smug that their underground safe haven is still standing, but Stan is honestly also impressed considering every time they went down there as kids she had sort of accepted that the comfort of the space came with the risk that a beam nailed in by a 12 year old girl could collapse on her head and kill her at any second.

“Oh my  _ god,  _ Stan!” Bill exclaims, tapping the lid of a small metallic canister that looks startling familiar, her own youthful handwriting neatly printed on the side, she’s interrupted from her slow piecing together of what it is as Bill sends one of whatever is inside flying toward her face.

“Stop  _ throwing things at me! _ ” She laughs before twisting the plastic shower cap in her hands and proudly donning it despite the dust and worn out elastic.

“Still the look of the century Stanny!” Richie says sarcastically as she thumbs through a rotting box of comic books.

“Okay say what you  _ want _ but at least  _ I  _ never got spiders in my hair!”

“I was too busy being sexy while you guys looked like lameos with your stupid hats.”

“Baby, you were never sexy back then.” Eddie says blankly, snatching a somewhat intact Spiderman comic and wrinkling her nose as she sniffs it.

“ _ Betrayal _ _!_ I want a divorce!” 

“Oh my  _ god  _ are you always like this?” Bev asks, digging through a green backpack with a faded ‘B’ embroidered on the front pocket (which  _ barely _ narrows it down to who it could belong to so Stan doesn’t even try to hazard a guess).

“Yes!” The two say simultaneously, matching shit eating grins that Stan thinks may kill her if the goddamn clown doesn’t.

“Ah, that checks out. The world's oldest tampon, anybody?” Bev asks, holding aloft a gallon sized Ziploc bag full of yellowed sanitary products.

“I will give whoever uses one of those one hundred bucks right now.” Richie sounds far too genuine and nearly everyone chokes out  _ no  _ through their laughter other than Bev who examines the bag for a second before asking if he could shove it up his ass and take the money which devolves them even further.

“ _ Nope _ ! Girls only Marsh, hand ‘em over!” Richie makes grabby hands for the Ziploc and Eddie yanks her back.

“Okay but they were in _my_ backpack so I definitely bought and or stole them, so I should be eligible for the challenge!”

“ _ No one _ is using tampons from the 90’s! There is no challenge! Why the fuck did you even have them in you bag in the first place?” Eddie rambles helplessly over their hysterics.

“I was literally only friends with girls, it would be a dick move  _ not to _ !” He defends uselessly, like that isn’t fucking touching as hell.

“Beverly Marsh you are the Only man.” Richie states as though that means something, but Stan finds herself nodding anyway. 

“Eddie and Richie, do you remember how you used to hog the hammock?” Bill asks and both their faces light up, it's honestly adorable, “Think it could still hold both of you?”

Both of them gasp at the same time and launch up to the corner, Bill’s face crumples, like she didn’t expect this to be the  _ only  _ possible outcome to her question.

Richie drags Eddie on top of her, bracing each other as they dissolve into giggles, somehow, for just a second, the ropes remain upright and a scattered cheer echoes around them until one snaps and they tumble in a pile of dust and filthy fabric.

Both women  _ lose it, _ shaking with laughter as Richie leans in to kiss the tip of Eddie’s nose and Eddie snorts into Richie’s collar bone, how much they love each other is  _ tangible  _ and despite herself something in Stan aches for Pat to be here.

The Kaspbrak-Tozier’s are too tangled together and focused on each other to notice the look all the other Losers share above their heads. 

_ We need to make sure they both make it out of here. _

Mike calls them to attention once the dust and laughter settles and Stan finds they’ve all paired off. Eddie settles in Richie’s lap against the wall that once held their hammock. Ben and Bev share the next one, Bev’s old backpack between them as a buffer for the longing looks Stan isn’t even sure they know they’re shooting each other. Oddly enough Bill and Mike sit together against the third wall, thighs pressed against the other’s, something new between them, like an understanding had been formed when the rest of them weren’t looking. 

Stan and her shower cap lean against the last wall

She misses her husband.

“Mike what is happening? As cool as it is to be down here, I’m confused.”

“I… this has always been the safest place in Derry, figured it would be the best place to talk about our plan.”

“Oh yeah the  _ murder clown  _ plan. Wonderful.” Eddie kisses Richie’s temple, murmering something in her ear and she quiets, Stan almost feels like she shouldn’t be watching, it feels too personal of a moment and Richie and Eddie feel too well developed as a pair to be here right now with the rest of them.

“Look… to perform the ritual to defeat IT we need a sacrifice.”

Apparently not a human sacrifice which the entire room seems to lose their minds at the prospect of. A token.

“I’m guessing this doesn’t count?” She takes off the shower cap and twirls it on one finger, Mike and Bill shake their heads at the same time (which is puzzling considering Bill should  _ not  _ be any more aware than the rest of them on what is going on right now).

“You need to find it alone.” Stan doesn’t even need to look at Richie and Eddie to see they’re gripping each other's hands, she can’t blame them, the idea of being  _ alone  _ anywhere in Derry feels like a goddamn death sentence and clearly everyone agrees.

Losers stick together, when they don’t bad things happen.

The scars around her face burn.

Richie and Eddie walk closer than Stan thought was humanly possible as they make their way out of the forest before breaking apart. 

Stan has a horrible feeling deep in her chest as she makes her way to the synagogue that this is going to go much worse than any of them are anticipating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very excited about the coming Derry chapters y'all, also some Stan POV becuase I fucking love Stan and she is an observant Gal which is helpful for Plot Reasons.  
> The Losers say We Will Love And Protect Two (2) Lesbians and One (1) Man


	18. It's a Scream!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Eddie find their tokens, things have always gone wrong for the pair when they're seperated.  
> (TW! Death description, gay slurs, general stuff that happens in IT chapter 2)

Richie hates absolutely everything about what is happening right now, hates how cold her hand feels once Eddie lets go before she shoves them in her pockets, hates watching Eddie’s retreating form and the worry behind her eyes when she looks back at her, hates the idea of being alone. She doesn’t do well alone, neither of them do, they’re like a well oiled machine, Eddie’s her common sense when she’s going to do something stupid and she’s Eddie’s rationality when she’s spiraling and this feels like the worlds worst situation to rip the machine into two pieces.

She doesn’t even know where she’s going, what fucking  _ token _ she’s supposed to be picking up. Everyone else seemed to at least have a good idea where they were going but her old house had been torn down and Mike said things in the clubhouse couldn’t work becuase they had to find it alone (and anyway she didn’t think she could shove a whole ass hammock in a backpack and just jump down the sewer with it). She wandered, Derry was a shithole and it wasn’t really  _ fun  _ to explore but it sure was an experience, not a good one, but an experience.

She passed the arcade. It was boarded up and run down, but unlike a lot of the now demolished or rebranded storefronts of her childhood it was  _ there _ . 

The boards on the door were rotted enough to pull them away easily, and she climbed in, uncomfortable with how quickly her stomach lurched.

Unbidden memories of Connie Bowers sprang forward. Connie Bowers and her pretty smile and her scared eyes and her curly blonde hair and her horrible lies that didn’t  _ start _ the rumors about Richie’s sexuality around town but they sure did increase the volume in which it was discussed.

Connie Bowers who made her shove every non platonic thought she’d ever had about a girl so far back in her mind that no one would ever be able to see through her so easily again. She’d carved all her anger and upset and supressed  _ love _ into the kissing bridge, R+E, until all she was left with was fear. Pure unadulterated fear.

Part of her wants to laugh when she thinks about it, flip off the town of Derry and the idea of Connie fucking Bowers becuase they had  _ won _ .

R+E  _ meant  _ something now, it was practically written on their marriage certificate, wrapped around her finger in the form of a wedding ring, carved deeper into her each and every time Eddie held her hand or kissed her or ran her fingers through her hair.

So she doesn’t know why she’s still scared. It was like coming back to Derry tore open a long healed scar she had forgotten about, but this time she had something far more important to lose than her reputation and safety from bullies.

She had her wife and she knew when tended to happen to openly gay couples in Derry. Mike had told them about Don Hagarty and Adrian Mellon

Trying to wave away her influx of thoughts, she scooped a token out of the broken down machine, staring at the worn pattern imprinted against the side. 

It was perhaps, a tad too literal of an approach but it worked. It meant something.

The arcade had been her favorite place in Derry, a safe space before the clubhouse was even an idea, but after that day she hadn’t gone back in, distantly she remembers Stan’s unsubtle schemes to try to convince her to go back, her best friend had always hated when there was a problem she couldn’t understand or fix, but even her gritted teeth claims that “No  _ really _ Rich! I want to learn how to play Street Fighter!” weren’t enough to convince Richie to go back.

Richie doesn’t like feeling afraid, she doesn’t like feeling unconfident in her sexuality after she’s built her career on being proud of it, after she had built her whole world view and brand on adoring her wife.

She leaves the arcade, hoping it's just the environment that's making her so jittery and knowing hopelessly that “the environment” is just all of Derry, Maine.

The arcade token is squeezed so tightly in her palm it imprints the ridged edges into her skin. 

She doesn’t have a location in mind as she starts walking, part of her knows she should go back to the Townhouse but something is pulling her to walk the wrong way. 

She thinks absently that she definitly should have gone back to the inn as she’s staring upward at the fucking ugly ass Paul Bunyan statue thats haunted nightmares she didn’t even know she was having. 

She’s sure that is indicative of something, a lesbian having a childhood fear of the world’s most steryotypically masculine man, a therapist would probably have a field day physcoanalyzing how that had to do with her fear of not being attracted to men or heteronormitivity or some bullshit.  Just as she’s thinking it over someone bumps into her, pressing a sheet of paper into her hands and standing uncomfortably close.

“Can I help you-  _ ugh _ !” Pressed closely to her own, the disfigured face of Adrian Mellon stares at her. He grins crookedly, teeth bloody and she tries to pull away but he grips her forearm with more strength than he looks like he should have.

“It's okay Richie. My boyfriend was scared too! All it did was get me killed. I’m sure your partner will be  _ just fine _ !” And Richie’s blood runs cold.

“I… fuck you! I’m not scared anymore!” Adrian pouts at her, eyes swimming with mirth. He’s enjoying how little it took to unnerve her and she is furious she’s giving the monster the satisfaction.

“Keep telling yourself that! We both know it’s not true,” blood begins to bubble from between his lips, some drips on her shirt, he’s standing  _ so close _ , “Ever since you got back to Derry you’ve been fucking  _ terrified haven’t you? _ You know why, don’t you Richie? Why Derry feels oh so different from California?”

“Shut up!” Richie forces her hands into fists at her sides despite how desperately she wants to bring them up to cover her ears.

“Because Derry is where dirty little homos like me and  _ Eddie  _ come to  _ die _ because their disgusting little partners were too scared to save them! But who knows? Killing your spouse because of you’re worried about your  _ dirty little secret  _ might just be that gay-lesbian  _ solidarity _ you love to talk about!”

“ _ Stop it! _ ” Adrian pats her cheek too hard, it burns when he pulls his hand away.

“It’ll be fun to be alone again, won’t it Rachel?” His voice pitches nasally, and he starts to laugh, a smile cracking too far beyond his cheeks. Pennywise opens his eyes and grins back at her.

“Beep Beep Richie!”

And she runs and runs and runs until her knees give out and the paper Adrian had forced in her hand feels like it's searing into her palm. She uncrumples it and immediately wishes she hadn’t as panicked bile threatens to bubble up her throat. 

_ In Loving Memory of Edith Kaspbrak-Tozier _

The Tozier half of her name is scratched weakly out in what could be thick red marker or could be blood, if Richie had to bet she’d choose the latter. Not that it mattered.

Because she was holding an obituary.

_Her_ _wife’s obituary with her wife’s face staring blankly from the middle and her wife’s name printed under In Loving Memory_

She feels horribly like someone has speared something sharp and acidic through her heart and jugular at the same time as she turns it over in shaky hands. 

She doesn’t want to read the biography printed on the back of the card, she  _ cannot handle reading the biography about her dead wife _ . Not dead. Eddie  _ isn’t dead _ .   
But the obituary in her hands says otherwise and despite herself Richie begins to read.

_ A native of Derry, Maine Edith Kaspbrak lived a safe, wholesome life under the protection of a caring but misunderstood mother, until the age of 6 when she had the misfortune of being placed in the same 1st grade class of one Rachel Tozier. _

_ From there on out Edith’s life became a tragedy as she was stalked, ridiculed, and tainted by Rachel, who quickly showed signs of a peverted, lesbian nature. Despite how hard she tried to escape, Rachel haunted her into young adulthood, making her miserable with crude jokes and forcing her into uncomfortable situations she couldn’t refuse in fear of what the other girl would make her do if she was angered. _

_ However, a guardian angel appeared in the form of a drunk driver and attempted to save Edith’s lost soul by purging the Tozier family from Derry. For a few blessed years Edith was set free, safe and protected under her mother’s watchful eye and then the loving embrace of a Man. With Myran Jones, Edith was kept healthy and alive, thriving in a successful career in finances.  _

_ But like the wicked serpent who once deceived Eve, Rachel managed to slither back into Edith’s life, forcing her under her control and back into the cesspit of sin she herself resides within. _

_ Edith was tricked into believing what they had was love until it was too late and she could not escape, Rachel twisting her mind until she lived the horrible, perverted life the other woman wanted her to. _

_ Rachel followed her through her entire life, only capable of hurting her, which reigned true even as she died. _

_ Edith’s passing was slow and painful, a terribly twisted and excruciating ending for a poor woman who never had a chance. _

_ Perhaps she will be missed by her wife, despite Rachel Tozier unquestionably being the reason for Edith’s untimely and gruesome death. _

She choked on a sob, part of her knew the card was lying, all one big awful lie made by a demon clown specifically to scare her. But it was working.

She turned the card back around as fast as she could, eyes still scanning the horrible words against her will, forcing the pit of guilt and horror in her stomach to grow.

The other side wasn’t better. The picture of her wife, before just blank faced and miserable looking, was gone, replaced with an Eddie glaring at her with empty eyes, like she died hating Richie. Like she was going to  _ die  _ hating  _ Richie _ . There was blood pouring from her lips and the cavity on her side where one of her arms used to be. The picture only showed from her chest up but from what was in frame it had clearly been ripped off, gore still hanging from the horrifying wound. Richie absently feels the paper slide through her fingers but she’s too preoccupied with throwing the top of her body over the railing of the bridge she had stumbled onto in haste to escape and choking out mostly stomach acid, she hadn’t really been able to think about eating much after what had went down in the restaurant but she was sort of regretting it now as her throat painfully attempted to regurgitate what wasn’t there. 

She tried to pretend the tears pricking at the corner of her eyes was because of the dry heaving but even a half second of a thought given to her wife’s obituary discarded somewhere by her feet sent her into another shaking set of wet coughs and she knew that wasn’t the case.  She pulled back, hugging herself to quell the shaking. Staring back at her from the dilapidated beams holding together the bridge was a faded R+E.

She didn’t know if it made her feel worse or better.

She needs Eddie. 

_ Fuck, _ she needs Eddie and she needs to get out of here and go somewhere where she isn’t afraid again.

**-**

“ _ Eddie! _ ” a voice sing-songs from the alleyway outside the pharmacy.

“ _ Fuck _ that!” She responds sharply, speeding up and clutching the plastic casing of the inhaler harder, Richie would be disappointed in her for actually using it instead of it just being her token but she  _ needed it _ and-

“ _ Eddie please! _ ” Richie sobs from the alley and she almost drops the inhaler. The voice hadn’t been Richie before. Had it? She shoved the aspirator in her hoodie pocket and tried to keep going. It was a trick, had to be, Richie had gone the opposite direction. 

“ _ Eds help me, fuck, please! _ ” And it's too much, she can’t ignore it anymore, not if it was a _ ctually  _ Richie. She sprints back to the alley, stomach lurching into uncomfortable worry, because it's Richie,  _ her _ Richie grinning weakly from the ground. She looks pale from behind her glasses (was she wearing her glasses this morning?) and she reaches a shaky hand out for Eddie before wincing and doubling over, arms wrapped tightly from her midsection.

“ _ Baby _ , Rich, what's wrong, what hurts?” She doesn’t know where to focus, hands flitting over her wife’s body before settling on her chin and tilting her head up, flinching at the tears pouring down her face. Richie isn’t a crier, not unless something is terribly wrong, she’s not even trying to joke and Eddie is so concerned she doesn’t know how to handle it.

“Richie what happened?” Instead of answering Richie surges up to her feet and kisses her, it's not a normal kiss, too rough with too many teeth, but she leans into it anyway. Richie begins to spasm, gripping the sides of her face to keep her in place when she tries to pull back, and something viscous and hot starts to fill her mouth.

She tears away, wide eyed and choking out the black sludgy vomit that is now steadily pouring from Richie’s mouth.

“ _ What _ -” And Richie  _ screams _ , the horrible liquid flecks across Eddie’s face, and she collapses into her chest, Eddie stumbles trying to support her. Horrified she realizes Richie isn’t moving, isn’t  _ breathing _ , she grips her cheeks letting out a sob as the sludge continues to pour from her wife’s too pale lips, black veins showing through the suddenly swallow cheeks, her eyes are cloudy and dead. She realizes foggily it's not Richie, how could she have ever thought it was Richie, the face is too angular and the hair too long, it's like someone designed a 40 year old version of her wife with only a picture of her at 13 for reference, but it's too late, the leper jeers at her over the corpse, leaning only a few inches away.

“ _ I fingered Richie for a dime! Oh, but Eddie! For you I’d do it free! _ ” 

Eddie thinks she should be afraid but she is too fucking angry. Way too fucking angry. How  _ dare  _ this fucking clown use Richie,  _ her Richie, _ to try and scare her. She rips away from where she's still cupping the Not-Richie’s cheeks, slime coated hands encircling the Leper’s throat and  _ squeezing _ .

It’s hands claw for her face, tongue stretching uncomfortably close as she crawls on the corpse and slams it into the alley wall, for a moment it looks s _ cared _ before the Not-Richie below her explodes and the Leper spews, coating her entirely in the blackened, slimy vomit. It takes her yelp of surprise and horrified backpedaling as an opportunity to skitter away.

“What the  _ FUCK _ ?” She wheezes, wiping the vomit from her eyes and standing on shaky legs, trying not to think about how the black sludge soaking through her pants was coming from an illusion of her wife’s corpse that had died in her arms.

She really needed to see Richie right fucking now or she was going to have a panic attack.

There are probably things she could do to calm herself down, like call Richie to make sure she’s okay or do breathing exercises or focus on the fact that the Leper looked scared of her which means she’d almost hurt IT but she’s far too freaked out to think clearly. 

Running in puke soaked sneakers isn’t something she’d ever planned on doing after the first time they fought the clown and it’s just as unpleasant as she remembers, by the time the Townhouse is in view the backs of her ankles are stinging, rubbed raw in a way she can’t bring herself to care about right now. 

“ _ Richie? _ ” No one answers so she keeps shouting on her way to their room, Richie has a tendency to not be where she’s supposed to be and Eddie doesn’t have it in her right now to search every hallway of the inn, “ _ Richie?” _

“No one else is back yet.” 

Stan looks miserable, chin resting on her drawn up knees as she plays with the edges of her sleeve. Her hands are shaking.

“Oh. Got your token?”

“Yeah, what the fuck happened to you?” She must look confused and Stan sits up a little, gesturing up and down until Eddie reprocesses the half-dried black slime cooling against her skin. Her fingers feel tacky when she unclenches her fists.

“IT happened,” Stan rolls her eyes, presenting her open palm as if to say: _ ‘No shit, asshole, go on’ _ , which knowing Stan is probably exactly what she’s thinking, “Dead Richie and the leper puked on me.”

“Fuck, man.” She resumes her folded over position, picking under her right sleeve and Eddie walks over and grabs her hand away with thinking about it, keeping a loose hold on it as she sits next to her on the couch. Slowly Stan turns her head to her, eyes a little bloodshot, like she’d been fighting a losing battle not to cry.

“I want to go home.” Eddie snorts at that, not that it's really funny at all considering this is her friend who almost killed herself before coming back to Derry and looked absolutely broken after an hour alone, but Stan offers her a watery smile before huffing air through her nose, “But we need to stay, don’t we?”

“ _ God _ , I really don’t want to.” Eventually she releases Stan’s hand, missing the contact but her hands are  _ gross _ . Stan looks slightly put out but doesn’t reach out again, rewrapping her arm around her knees.

“You should probably go clean up.” She comments idly, eyeing how Eddie is shifting uncomfortably in her filthy clothing, and honestly there is nothing she would rather do more but she can’t. Everything has still got her on edge and she’s not going to move until she sees Richie, alive and okay. Stan seems to understand, thankfully not speaking what passes silently between them.

They both know the chances are high that Richie isn’t going to be okay when she gets back, but Eddie thinks that if anyone actually says it she is going to fall apart.

“The painting is still there.” Stan chokes loudly through the tense silence.

“What?”

“The painting of the woman in the rabbi’s office. She crawled out of the frame again and… I…” She stops and buries her face in her knees again, the sides of her face still visible so Eddie has full view of the scars framing her cheeks and up her temples. Foggy memories appear of red and teeth and fear and Stan sobbing as blood smears from the tooth marks in her face and Eddie feels sick.

“ _ Jesus _ , Stan, I’m sorry.” 

“Not your fault.” Eddie is pretty sure she should provide more comfort but all she can think about is the fact that the real reason Stan got attacked in the first place when they were kids was because she was alone. But right now Stan is right fucking next to her and her wife is no where to be found and the last time Eddie sort of saw her she had cried and collapsed in her arms and exploded under her knees.

She curls into her own corner of the couch and runs her palms over her hair, trying to drag out the sludge before it gets crunchy. She’s glad it’s short now, she vaguely remembers from last time sitting in her bathtub for over three hours as her mother sobbed and ran a soapy brush through the dried puke tangled in her hair, gripping her shoulder so tight she had bruises the next day every time she yelped or the bristles tore through particularly matted in vomit.

“Holy crap,  _ Eddie _ .” Bev chokes, walking in and Ben breaks away from his side to check on Stan. 

“I’m fine.” She does  _ not  _ sound fine and she definitely isn’t fine, she just needs to see Richie, and the pair seems to notice that. Soft conversation drifts over from the bar and Stan leans over proposing a bet on when they’re going to realize they’re both flirting, it gets a weak laugh from Eddie and she leans back looking a little too satisfied with herself when Eddie offers twenty bucks on them making out by the end of the week.

It’s a nice break from the worst case scenarios running in her head every minute that she’s sinking into her filth in the corner of the couch.

“ _ Eddie? _ ” She’s off the couch and through the doorway before Richie is done calling her name.

“Are you okay?” She asks, throwing herself against her wife’s chest who freezes before melting against her.

“Yeah, yeah I’m okay, you’re okay?” Richie does  _ not  _ sound okay and Eddie kind of wishes she didn’t reek of vomit so she could tell if she was upset enough to have stress puked. Richie doesn’t let go, if anything she hugs her tighter as she sounds in disgust and leans her chin on top of Eddie’s hair (which  _ has _ dried crunchy despite her best efforts).

“What  _ happened _ ?”

“Later, please, I really want to shower now that I know you’re in one piece.” Richie presses a kiss to her hair and then gags, like she forgot in two second that Eddie was covered in vomit.

The second the door of their room is closed Eddie drags her onto the bed, internally wincing at the idea of getting Clown Puke on the blankets but she needs Richie close and she needs to look her in the eyes. She tugs Richie backwards against her shoulder and looks down at her.

“Thought you were going to shower?”

“In a second, I just needed to do this alone,” Richie’s eyebrows furrow at that and she wishes she reassure her and smooth out the tension creasing her forehead but she knows there is literally nothing she can do, not while they’re still in Derry, “you need to promise me you’ll follow one rule before we go do the ritual.” Richie stretches up to kiss the underside of her jaw before thinking better of it and kissing her finger tips and pressing them to her cheek, keeping the hand there when Eddie leans into it.

“Don’t  _ ever _ go where I can’t follow again.  _ Please _ . That was  _ awful _ .”

“I won’t, I promise, but you need to do the same.” Her voice wavers a little and Eddie tilts her head to kiss the palm resting against her cheek.

“Of course, we only go where we can follow the other one, it is a Kaspbrak-Tozier household rule in effect immediately until we’re out of this shithole.”

“I wouldn’t be against it being a rule at all times.” Richie grins up at her, snuggling closer to her chest when Eddie doesn’t argue, “I love you.”

“I love you too, baby.” She lets herself revel in the moment for a little bit, Richie’s warmth against her chest and her hand cupping her cheek. Right now they are safe and together and physically okay even if how tight she’s holding her wife to her chest and how poorly Richie is covering up the fear behind her eyes says some things about how they’re doing mentally.

“Now go shower, I can tell you hate how gross you feel.” She kisses the top of Richie’s head and crawls out of bed, leaving the door cracked open because it makes the necessary distance feel smaller.

She slides open the shower curtain and gets stabbed in the cheek.

Or at least she thinks she did, she doesn’t know what's happening but there is a man in the bathtub which is its own level of horrifying because there is a  _ man in the bathtub  _ and Derry has never been a safe place to be female and she is so very glad she's still wearing her clothes. 

It takes a second to remember the knife in her cheek.

“ _ Wha’? Why? _ ” Is the only thing she can say because there is blood bubbling through her lips and  _ holy shit it’s Henry Bowers oh my GOD. _

“It’s your  _ time _ .” He hisses grinning, manic wide eyes that make her feel all of twelve years old being cornered against the lockers of Derry Middle School, except this time her mouth tastes of copper because there is a  _ knife  _ in her _ cheek. _

“Eds? Did you say something?” Bowers eyes light up.

“IT said she should watch! A little  _ dyke reunion, huh? _ ” Eddie is suddenly reminded with stomach turning clarity that her wife is in the other room. She isn’t letting Richie get hurt.

The knife is out of her cheek and in Henry’s stomach before she can really process what she’s doing.

She doesn’t stick around to watch as he sputters and grabs at the hilt embedded just above his navel. Richie is already outside the door, clearly coming to check on the commotion and she slams into her, choking out mouthfuls of her blood and struggling to get solid footing sagging against her wife’s chest.

“Eddie? What the  _ fuck _ ?” Richie sounds strangled and Eddie keeps trying to beat on her chest and shove her out of the room but she’s just  _ standing there _ . If Eddie was thinking clearly she might realize that seeing your wife tumble out of the bathroom with a hole in her face that is pouring blood is horrifying and a lot to take in, but in her defense her face is the one with the hole so her frustrated pushing and unhelpful cries of “ _ BOWERS _ ” is the best she can do.

Henry bursts through the door wheezing wetly and brandishing the knife, white shirt steeped in his own blood which only makes his mania even more horrific.

“Holy  _ shit did he stab you? _ ”

“Yeah real  _ observant,  _ dear!” She snaps trying to yank them to the door but suddenly his hands are on her shoulders, yanking her back, knife at her neck.

“This is  _ perfect _ ! IT said you should watch! IT said it's her time, Richie, but not yours! No, not yet!”

She’s going to  _ die _ , holy fucking  _ shit _ , she’s going to die in Derry’s only inn by Henry Bower’s knife that is coated in a mix of both his and her blood.

“Let her  _ go! _ ” His arm is ripped from where it's gripping her against his chest, the blade of his knife flutters over her neck and she grabs at the stinging cut, reassuring herself that it's just a nick and her throat hasn’t been slit as she stumbles against the wall. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks she should be running for help or screaming or something as she watches her wife slam Henry Bowers’ head into the wall so hard there is a sizable dent in the peeling wallpaper.

“ _ STOP  _ this isn’t how its supposed to  _ go _ !” He wails struggling against her and she slams his head against the wall again.

“Shouldn’t have stabbed my wife  _ dickwad _ !” Eddie wouldn’t be ashamed to admit it was honestly very hot if she noticed it, but she was too focused on prodding at the hole in her cheek and screaming her wife’s name when Henry kicks out a leg and sends them tumbling to the floor.

They struggle, her hands at his neck and his grabbing at her arms and shoulders until he gets a good grip he shoves Richie’s head into the TV stand, not quite as hard as she did to him but enough to make the cabinets rattle and the big boxy TV shake. It’s playing some 90’s sitcom Richie must have turned on for background noise and the too loud laugh track makes her skin crawl as she watches him lay his forearm over her wife’s neck and raise his knife over her wriggling form.

“ _ I KNOW YOU SAID IT IS NOT HER TIME BUT IT CAN BE!”  _

_ Fuck _ the hole in her cheek and  _ fuck _ the fear climbing up her throat and  _ fuck  _ Henry Bowers and the stupid fucking  _ Clown _ ! 

She sprints across the room, throwing herself on top of him and wrenching his knife from wobbly fingers, jamming it into the side of his neck. He  _ screams,  _ swinging out wildly and catching her cheek with his fist, it  _ burns _ and she recoils with a yelp, back hitting the cool metal of the radiator.

“I will  _ kill you! _ ” He rasps, clawing at the knife from where he’s sprawled on his back, thrashing against the carpet. All of a sudden his hands leave his neck and shoot around Richie’s ankle, toppling her off balance from where she’s begun to stand.

“ _ Rich! _ ” She struggles, looking up at Eddie so she can see the panicked fear behind her eyes which Eddie isn’t sure if it’s because she is looking at her, covered in blood, or the murderer pulling her to him by her leg. Richie’s body moves as if she isn’t thinking about any of her motions, just acting on purely protective instinct, swinging her arms around to topple over the TV stand, tearing her leg away when his hold falters at the last second as he realizes what is happening.

His legs spasm and his arms beat against the floor for just a second as the sickening crack of his skull and shattering glass and distorted sitcom laughter reverbs around the room, blood seeps into the carpet around the television like a gruesome halo.

“It's a  _ scream _ Henry!” Richie crows in a horrible Stu impression before bursting into tears. If Eddie didn’t know Richie’s tendency to slip into voices and use pop culture references as a bizarre coping mechanism she might be afraid her wife was losing it. Not that she’d blame her, she sort of feels like she’s losing it herself.

Their door slams open and Bev, Ben, and Stan rush in, fully prepared for a fight, only to stop dead and their tracks and just stare. Eddie is sure they make quite the picture, Richie sobbing, half sprawled on the carpet and staring at her hands, Eddie herself, pressed against the radiator, splashed in her own blood, and the corpse on their floor, ancient television set crushing his head.

“It… he’s Bowers.” She manages.

“Oh my god.” 

“Are you okay?” That lurches her out of the shocked frozen state she’d been stuck in and she stumbles gracelessly over the corpse to get to Richie.

“Yeah,  _ shit _ , Rich, you good?” She knows the answer is no, because Richie just  _ killed someone _ and even though it was self defense and saved both their lives that isn't something you walk away from “good”.

“No,  _ shit,  _ Eddie I was talking about you, that is a lot of fucking blood.” Oh, yeah, her face wound, which she realizes is fucking  _ throbbing.  _ She pokes at it with her tongue, which doesn’t help, and when Stan who has stumbled over realizes what she’s doing she swats at her arm to get her to stop.

She doesn’t think she’s ever seen anyone die that close up before, it makes her feel sick when she thinks about the cooling body behind her so she tries not to think about it. Richie mumbles apologies Eddie doesn’t understand because none of this was her fault and kisses her knuckles when she hisses as Bev cleans and bandges the wound with quick but practiced skill that makes everyone in the room uncomfortable.

“May need to rethink our showering together policy if you’re going to go get  _ stabbed _ when you go to take one.” Richie chuckles eventually once they’re out of the room and pressed against each other's sides in the lobby. 

Eddie feels something uncoil slightly in her gut, Richie was joking again which meant she was at least feeling better about murdering someone and Eddie didn’t need to feel guilty about releasing the horror and pain of the last couple hours and collapsing into her chest. Richie probably would have said she could have done that in the first place but she knew her wife better than she knew herself and she could tell when she was on the precipice of breaking and up until she’d told her joke she’d been dangerously toeing the line.

“I love you.” She whispered, pouring everything she could into the words pressed against Richie’s collar bone and the grip around her tightens just a little as Richie presses her lips to Eddie’s hair hard and lets the kiss linger.

Their peace is once again broken by a phone ringing. 

Stan’s phone, to be exact, which she answers calmly enough, but that quickly dissolves into poorly concealed panic.

“She  _ what _ ? Mike, are you  _ sure? _ ” She swallows hard, voice quivering as she says quietly, “Okay, we’ll meet you there.”

“Stan?” Ben stands quickly, looking fully prepared to rush over and comfort her from where she’d been silently staring at her blackened phone screen, Bev places a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“ _ Fucking idiot! _ ” She hisses, laughing humorlessly before taking a deep breath, eyes serious and scared, “We need to go to Neibolt, Bill is about to go in alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woof okay so that was a Chapter to Write, I finished it at 5 in the morning which is fun. Anyway I love scream and if you haven't seen scream you should watch it and Stu gets his head crushed by a TV, for reference.   
> Anyway it's Neibolt Time!!


	19. Floating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Losers enter Neibolt  
> (TW! Death/murder description, Non graphic rape/noncon mention, suicide attempt descriptions)

The house on Neibolt is exactly how Eddie remembers it. Unlike the rest of Derry which suddenly feels much smaller than it did when she was a kid, Neibolt seems to loom just as large as it did standing outside it at age 12. 

They get there just in time to stop Bill from doing something very stupid, but now that  _ that _ problem is solved Eddie is faced with the relization she’s going to need to go in there again.

She feels terribly short of breath all of a sudden and Richie’s hand firmly tightened around hers is the only thing keeping her from grabbing the inhaler burning in her pocket.

“I think Richie said it best last time we were here.” She snaps out of her stupor to focus on Bill’s words as Richie’s hold on her hand tenses. 

“I did?” Richie’s eyes shoot to hers and she just shrugs, “I don’t want to die?” Bill rolls her still teary eyes.

“Not  _ that _ .”

“You’re lucky we’re not measuring dicks?” Eddie snorts, more grateful than she’d ever admit for her stupid jokes as she feels the tension drain slightly from her shoulders. Bev cracks out a surprised laugh and the corner’s of Stan’s mouth quirk up even though she shakes her head in false exasperation. Bill looks significantly less amused. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that Richie genuinely has absolutely no clue what Bill is really talking about, it takes a second before her eyes widen slightly in realization.

“Lets kill this fucking clown?” Bill lets out a watery laugh, and Eddie feels herself relax a bit more, Bill was always her best friend and their leader. If Big Bill was smiling it meant she was going to get them through this.

“Lets kill this  _ fucking clown _ !”

They enter the belly of the beast.

And everything almost immediately goes to shit.

Eddie doesn’t really know what happened, they were just walking through the main hallway, the same disgusting, peeling wallpaper and inch of dust on the floor that's kicking up allergies she’s  _ known _ don’t exist for over a decade. But then Ben is  _ screaming _ and Bev runs to her so fast Eddie’s brain can’t keep up, only processing when the door slams in Mike’s face, severing any contact with the three. Ben is still s _ creaming _ .

But all of a sudden Eddie isn’t listening.

Because there is a fridge shaking in front of them and _Eddie is lying in the rubble of the collapsed floor and her arm is_ ** _burning_** the door swings open _Pennywise grins out at her, body twisted horribly and eyes shining hungrily_ a man Eddie doesn’t recognize is tangled inside, forearms exposed and dripping more blood than should ever be coming out of any human body _Eddie tries so hard to look away but she can’t, she can’t move, she can’t scream, her arm aches and she can’t breathe_ Stan screams brokenly something that sounds like ‘Pat!’ and Eddie is barely functioning enough to process that ‘oh shit that’s her husband’ _because the clown is crawling out of the fridge with a symphony of cracks and squelches that make Eddie want to vomit and he’s getting closer why is he getting closer_ the man’s head breaks off with a snap and Stan lets out a horrified sob as it looks up at her.

“Why would you do this to me Samantha? It should have been you! It should have been you but you just couldn’t kill yourself right! You’re always too scared to do anything right!”  _ The clown is laughing at her _ Stan just cries incoherent apologies as terrible little spider legs are forcing their way through the man’s temples and cheeks and jaw as he whimpers in pain before scuttling towards Stan, gnashing his pinprick sharp teeth  _ yellowed too pointy teeth are grinning through the clown’s fake pout, he’s mocking her as she sobs and she still can’t move  _ the head begins to crawl up her leg, cackling “Still scared of getting spiders in your hair?” Stan yelps weakly, instinctively kicking out and the head goes flying and then it’s on Richie. 

When did Richie let go of her hand? 

Stan is sobbing and Bill is shouting her name and something about a knife and Richie is screaming and struggling and the teeth are getting too close  _ too close _ to her face and Eddie needs to do something.

_But the clown is in front of her and then he’s touching her why is he touching her let go let go let the fuck go her arm hurts_ ** _so bad_** _and he’s pretending to eat it and he’s laughing and he’s mocking her but he’s going to eat her_ ** _he is going to eat her_** _and she is going to die she is going to die she is going to_ ** _die_** Bill is slamming her against a wall, face red and an angry scowl on her face that Eddie doesn’t think has ever been aimed at her before. Eddie, overwhelmed with fear and confusion, just whimpers.

“What the  _ hell,  _ Eddie? What is  _ wrong with you _ ! Do you want Richie to die too?” Richie? No No No Eddie would  _ never…  _ what is Bill talking about? What was...  _ Richie _ , she snaps her gaze over Bill’s shoulder and spots her wife, Bev folding his coat under her head as she groans, Stan weeping into Mike’s shoulder, Ben staring horrified at Patrick Uris-Blum’s severed head and the knife in her hand that is still shoved in the skull. Eddie thinks she should be relieved everything is okay but Bill is still glaring at her and all she can process are the phantom pains shooting up her forearm and the terror still coursing through her  _ the clown is going to kill her. _

“ _ No _ … Bill I’m sorry… I’m just  _ scared _ .” She feels so painfully young again and Bill falters, her hold loosening.

“Bill stop being a  _ dick _ I’m  _ fine _ .” Richie snaps, struggling up like she’s going to swoop in and shove Bill away from Eddie before she stumbles back down and Bev huffs a frustrated ‘ _ Stay still dumbass’, _ pulling her back into his lap.

“R-richie, she-”

“Was fucking  _ scared, _ that’s allowed, this is fucking  _ scary _ . Now leave her the  _ fuck alone _ .” That seems to break Bill out of her fury and she steps back, looking suddenly ashamed and uncomfortable. Eddie goes to reach out and apologize but at that moment Richie groans out “ _ Shit  _ my head hurts” and she has other priorities. 

“I’m so sorry Rich,  _ shit, _ are you okay?” Bev deposits the trashmouth into her lap, going to Ben to pry her shaking fingers off the knife. Richie levels her with a wobbly smile, eyebrows furrowed.

“Hey, I’m good! Really, spaghetti, absolutely peachy. But you aren’t, are you?”

_ “Eddie look at me!” Richie won’t let go of her, and the clown is still coming but Richie is holding onto her shoulders and she feels so much safer even if she yelps for her not to touch her. Richie’s here and Eddie is going to be okay. _

“I… I’m fine.” Her wife looks unconvinced but concedes, burying her face into Eddie’s stomach with a dramatic whine.

“Guess I shouldn’t have moved away before I was sure you could have followed me. I sort of deserve it for breaking our rule, huh?” She jokes weakly, muffled by how her whole face is still pressed against the front of Eddie’s sweatshirt.

“Yeah, that's right, fucker.” She responds, but there is no heat behind the teasing, overridden by fondness and the way her voice still shakes. She leans over and presses a featherlight kiss to the side of her head.

They’re all up and moving far quicker than Eddie would have liked but Richie doesn’t let go of her hand again. They just need to complete the ritual and this will all be over and they can  _ go home _ .

**-**

The ritual hadn’t worked. Becuase Mike fucking  _ lied. _

Richie gets it, really she does. Mike was desperate and alone for way too long and Richie understands. But she’s still fucking  _ pissed. _ If she had just fucking  _ told them it wasn’t going to work _ then they could have fucking prepared but now she doesn’t know where her friends are and Eddie is wheezing into her shoulder from where they’re tangled together on the floor somewhere. Richie keeps her eyes squeezed shut like that’ll make everything go away, like she’ll open them and this will all be some terrible nightmare she’ll tell Eddie about and they’ll laugh and go get pancakes for breakfast because Eddie’s a pushover when Richie’s upset and wants something.

But she has a feeling if she opens her eyes she’s not going to see a worried, sleepy Eddie or their master bedroom with it’s light gray walls her wife said were ‘sophisticated’ like they didn’t hang framed novelty Space Jam posters over them.

Reluctantly she looks up anyway.

Very Scary, Scary, Not Scary At All.

Richie had fucking forgotten about the three doors and goddamn she wishes she could still be activley forgetting them. 

Eddie unfolds herself from Richie’s arms, looking overwhelmed as she tugs them both into a standing position and scrambles for Not Scary At All, not noticing how she’s dragging Richie, who is too preoccupied with the weak cry of  _ Where’s my shoe?  _ ringing in her ears until Eddie rips open the door.

Bowie grins up at them, tail beating happily against the floor. What the  _ fuck _ .

“Hey you  _ fucking clown _ this is just making me  _ sad you fucker! _ ” Eddie grabs her hand, reassuringly rubbing her thumb along the back of it.

“It’s honestly kind of nice seeing him again.” Eddie concedes and Richie hums in acknowledgement, “But it's definitely a trick.”

“Oh yeah, I’m not falling for the clown’s mean dog tricks.” Bowie barks excitedly, toddling closer and Richie feels her resolve soften, “Oh fuck it,  _ come here buddy _ .” Eddie grips her hand hard as she slips into her babying puppy voice.

“ _ Richie! _ ”

“ _ Eddie! _ It’s  _ Bowie! _ ” She shoves her arms towards the golden retriever who’s begun to familiarly body wiggle once Richie conceded to scratching behind his ears, Eddie melts behind her, leaning down to pet him too.

“Okay yeah ok _ ay _ !” Bowie begins to decompose, their hands sinking through fur and rot that snaps both overwhelmingly back into the reality that the real Bowie’s ashes are scattered peacefully across his favorite park back home in LA, they’d practically held a whole ass funeral and Richie had cried for a week and there was no conceivable way the rotting zombie dog in front of them was their boy. 

Fake Bowie growls deep, one eye popping out of its socket and the other beginning to glow red.

Richie screams out a slew of curses as a yelping Eddie tears her arm out with a sickening squelch, shrieking in disgust as she drags Richie out and to the next door in a panic, Richie’s too shell shocked to stop her until they’re already tumbling through the door and her choked out “ _ wait! _ ” is cut off, everything spinning in a disconcerting whirl. Her head clears and all of a sudden she doesn't feel in control of her own body, like she’s a puppet and someone off stage is pulling her strings as she sits carefully, shoulder’s tense. She has no clue where she is. 

It's a small apartment, unnaturally clean, and she’s wearing a fucking cardigan. She’s never worn a fucking cardigan in her life. 

The front door slams open and Eddie stumbles in, almost collapsing in relief when she sees Richie. She looks blessedly in control and Richie is horribly confused about what’s scary here. Sure, being a puppet isn’t ideal, it's actually very unsettling, but Eddie is okay so it's fine. 

“Richie?” Her eyebrows are drawn together and she’s scanning her up and down with worried eyes, Richie desperately wishes she could reach out to her, tell her she’s okay but she isn’t in fucking control right now. Instead her body  _ flinches _ and shakily looks down at the overflowing pill container she didn’t realize was clutched in her pale hand. For a horrible, gut wrenching second she thinks she’s about to force Eddie to take them, that the fucking clown is about to make her wife relive her trauma with Richie as the abuser. Richie doesn’t think any other fear the clown could pull from her psyche could be quite as horrifying.

Instead she downs a handful of pills and smiles hesitantly up at Eddie’s horrified face.

“I’m so sorry darling! I was resting all day just like you told me to and I forgot to take my meds, but I’m taking them right now! Please don’t be too mad!” Eddie’s eyes widen and Richie realizes with dawning horror that this isn't her fear at all. It’s Eddie’s. 

Her stomach lurches uncomfortably when she thinks too hard about the fact that Eddie is more afraid of  _ becoming _ her mother and hurting Richie than the concept of being controlled and manipulated again  _ by _ Richie. 

She swallows another handful of medication, its far too much to be realistic but she supposes Pennywise had always been rather ham handed in his  _ stupid, goddamn, dumbass _ analogies.

She stands and straightens her long skirt, “I scheduled that doctor's appointment you told me to! Don’t worry I made sure it's a day you can come, I know you always say it's much safer for me not to do those kinds of things alone!”

“What… Richie, what are you talking about?” Richie laughs, the clown manipulating it to sound scared and false. Eddie looks like she’s going to cry.

“There you go again calling me  _ Richie _ ! I thought you said after you had me quit my job that Rachel was more suitable for a lady now that I don’t need a stage name!” 

“ _ What? _ ” Her body flinches again at the shout, looking down meekly, she’s never looked down meekly in her fucking life and she hates it, “Rich I would… I would  _ never _ … why would I make you do that?”

“You told me just a few months ago you didn’t like me taking the risk of performing in the public eye, that you worked so we didn’t need my paychecks and we’re married so I don’t need any of my own money because you could control all the finances. Are you alright?” She twists the wedding ring on her finger, easily displaying the fake princess cut diamond attached to the band.

“ _ No _ . No, that doesn’t make sense, I would never do that to you! I know how much performing means to you and-” She trails off, too upset to continue. 

“Edith, I know you’re only taking care of me. It’s alright.” She grabs a new pill bottle from one of the kitchen cabinets. Listed on the door is a paper of “acceptable foods” with boldly printed calorie counts and a lengthy list of “RACHEL’S ALLERGIES”, Eddie snatches it off and swallows thickly. Richie brings the orange plastic to her lips and tosses back the bottle like it's a fucking shotglass, mentally wincing at the rough feeling of the pills bubbling down her throat. 

“Richie…  _ stop _ !” She jolts to a halt at Eddie’s command and obediently lowers the bottle, bowing her head submissively in her wife’s direction.

“I’m sorry Edith! What did I do wrong?” Her voice wobbles with unshed tears and Eddie grabs her wrist, letting out a soft cry when whatever is controlling Richie makes her inhale sharply and fold smaller into herself.

She wants to fucking scream.

She wants to pick up Eddie and reassure her and kiss her and drag her out of this hellhole dollhouse clown apartment.

But it doesn’t matter what she wants because she’s a puppet who is weak and sickly and scared of  _ Eddie _ . 

Forced to conform to her fictitious tyrannical control because this whole world is like a poorly staged play, Pennywise puppeteering her to the script he’s written about an Eddie who could  _ never _ actually exist.

Her Eddie, the  _ real  _ Eddie, looking desperate and terrified, paper still crumpled in her fist, surges up to kiss her and for a split second Richie feels IT’s control loosen, like it accidently fumbled the string tied around her voice box for just a second.

“ ** _It’s not_** **_real_** _-_ ly appropriate, Edith! I thought things _that_ affectionate that were only for special occasions!” Her oxygen supply tightens, the clown forcing her back under his jurisdiction, hand tightly gripping her throat so she can’t slip through his fingers again.

But she thinks Eddie gets it, even if she doesn’t understand exactly whether or not Richie was the one to say it, what she managed to choke out before the false fragility took back over seemed to be enough of a reminder. She grips one of Richie’s hands hard and uses the other to tilt her head to look at her, something broken behind her eyes but still tinged with her familiar fire.

“I love you, I love you so much and I would  _ never _ -” She cuts off, choked and devastated once it becomes clear that Richie’s body is more focused on averting its gaze and giving a terrified placating smile than on listening to her words. 

“ _ Fuck! _ ” Her voice wavers close to a sob, before shifting her hold into something sturdier and starting to drag them both to the door. 

‘ _ That's my girl!’  _ She thinks, hoping uselessly that she’s projecting it loud enough for Eddie to hear. 

Instead Richie’s mouth desperately apologizes if she “broke any of your rules Edith!”

“ _ Stop saying that! _ ”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I know you’ve said that shouting might excite me too much!” Richie is going to need to have a goddamn talk with the stupid clown about his dialouge choices, it is so ridiclously unrealistic and unnerving she wants to puke. But it seems to be working for Eddie who’s hand around her wrist is shaking.

“Edith I thought I wasn’t allowed outside? What are you doing?” With more effort than it should take, the clown digging Richie’s heels into the carpet, Eddie drags the two of them out of the door and Richie collapses into her chest, finally the sole occupant of her body once again.

“Hey, hey, hey it wasn’t real! You’re okay!” Now that she was in her own clothes, strings cut, she folds all of her messed up emotions about being a clowns meek little puppet into a tiny mental box labeled  _ wow, wasn’t that fucked, lets repress it _ so she can put all her focus into making sure Eddie is okay. Eddie who is full body quivering, choking out horrified apologies.

“Richie I would  _ never _ ... _ I can’t _ … I  _ wouldn’t- _ ” 

“I know! It wasn’t real, it was the clown, it wasn’t you!” She cups her cheeks, making her face tilt up to look her in the eye, “I’m not scared of you, you have never  _ ever _ tried to control me, it was some fucking manipulative clownery, okay?” 

“Richie I can’t do this.” She sounds  _ terrified _ and it makes Richie’s heart  _ ache _ , for a second she wants to just say  _ fuck it _ and get the fuck out of there, but they can’t. She has to kill this goddamn clown first for making her wife even  _ think _ about doubting herself.

“Yes you can. You are the bravest person I know.” Eddie scoffs, like Richie was making a joke. She  _ needs  _ to know this isn’t a joke, she needs to know that Richie is absolutely 100% serious, “Hey,  _ hey  _ I’m telling the truth here! Who just got us out of an illusion emulating a reverse of her trauma in less than 10 minutes?”

“... Me.” She still tries to pull away, but Richie doesn’t let her.

“Who flew all the way to Florida just to kiss the other one for the first time?”

“Me.”

“Who stabbed Bowers with a knife she pulled from her own  _ face _ !”

“Me!” Richie beams down at her, nodding so hard it makes her feel a little dizzy.

“Who voluntarily proposed to the biggest asshole on the planet?” Eddie’s hesitant smile drops into a teasing glare as she shoves Richie back before immediately pulling her close again.

“From how he was acting at dinner and the shit you remembered about your awards dress fitting, Bev.” 

“Fair, but I get the feeling it wasn’t voluntary. The correct answer was  _ you. _ ”

“I thought you were telling the truth here, honey.” She grins, fully sincere, and Richie feels her cheeks grow hot.

"Anyway, that's not the  _ point! _ You, Edith Kaspbrak-Tozier, are the bravest, strongest, most  _ amazing  _ woman I have ever met. I’m here and I’ll protect you but you don’t  _ need me to _ . Do you get what I’m saying?” She takes Eddie smashing their lips together as confirmation that she did, indeed, get what Richie was saying.

“Thank you.” Eddie rests her hand against one of Richie’s cheeks, rubbing down the side of her face, Richie leans into it, turning her face to kiss the pad of the thumb as it traces her cheekbone.

“You don’t have anything to thank me for Eds.”

“ _ God _ , don’t call me that after we’ve just had a  _ moment _ , asshole.” Richie ignores her, reaching up to grab her hand.

“Ready?”

“Absolutely not.” They enter the cistern just in time to see Mike, in apparent dire need of a distraction. 

Luckily for her, Richie is excellent at being distracting.

She lifts her and Eddie’s conjoined hands, pressing a kiss to her wife’s knuckles before breaking away and scooping up a rock.

“Richie, hey, don’t be fucking  _ stupid _ !” Eddie hisses, scrambling to pull her back and just missing as Richie skids under the clown’s disgusting spidery body. 

“Wanna play truth or dare? Here's the truth! You're a sloppy bitch! Let’s dance! Yipikaye Motherfu-'' and everything explodes into white.

She feels, momentarily as though she’s floating.

“ _ You’ll float too” _ Georgie Denbrough had promised, and she supposed the kid had delivered. 

Her brain shorts out.

And then she’s crashing into the ground,  _ fuck  _ that hurts and she can’t reoirient herself until she hears Eddie.  _ Eddie. _

“ _ I think I killed it Rich!”  _ She's laughing but her eyebrows are still scrunched in concern from where she is propped on top of her. She’s filthy and has a  _ hole _ in her cheek and they’re in a murder clown sewer but Richie thinks she’s never looked more beautiful.

And then she’s impaled in the chest.

“ _ Richie- _ ”

_ No No NO NO EDDIE FUCK NO NO NO NO  _ **_NO NO NO_ **

She feels frozen still, a forced front row seat as the leg speared through her wife’s chest jolts her into the air and she’s flung across the sewer with a sickening crack. Richie  _ screams _ , trying desperately to get up and run to catch her but she feels like she can’t move until Eddie tumbles to the ground. Blessedly mobile once again she scrambles over, as if in cruel mocking pity, the clown doesn’t even try to stop her.

“Eddie,  _ no _ , baby, please, _ come on _ , come on! Don’t go. Hold on, don't leave me,  _ please _ .” But Eddie is just blinking up at her blearily, blood pouring from her mouth and through Richie’s fingers as she presses her hands on the hole in her chest. It’s too much blood. It's flooding the room.

_ Eddie Eddie Eddie _

Eddie just smiles at her with bloody teeth, hissing through her words as she cups Richie cheeks, hands shaking violently in the struggle just to lift her arms. She rubs one thumb over her cheekbone and Richie can’t  _ understand it. _ They’d been in the same position, Eddie’s thumb trailing the top of her cheek and down her jaw, just minutes ago, she’d done last night at the townhouse, she’d done it back home in LA, in their bed right before their phone’s rang and the world tilted off its axis. It was normal and comforting and so goddamn wrong in this setting. 

What went wrong? This couldn’t be  _ happening _ , it was  _ Eddie _ and she said they would be  _ okay  _ but this  _ wasn’t okay _ !

“I’m right here, don’t cry, baby, you know it breaks my heart. If anyone is allowed to be crying here it's  _ me _ .” And Richie lets out a worried chuckle as Eddie laughs wetly at her own joke before hissing in pain and coughing up more blood, when she looks up her eyes are scared, “Richie. I don’t want to die.”

“You won’t, Eddie you  _ can’t _ , just hold on everything is going to be okay!” She reassures weakly, any comfort that might have been gained from her words cut with her sobs.

“I don’t want to die, Rich, _I_ _really don’t wanna die-_ ” Her head lulls a little, blood slurred words drifting off.

Too much blood. Any blood is too much blood.  _ Eddie’s blood. _

“You can’t leave me  _ please _ you can’t I love you so much please hold on Eds-”

“Don’t call me that.” Eddie grins weakly and she’s sobbing so hard her whole body hurts.

And then Eddie closes her eyes.

“No baby  _ please don’t fall asleep _ . You said we weren’t allowed to go anywhere without the other you can’t… I can’t follow you  _ Eddie!”  _

Richie has always thought that without Eddie Kaspbrak the world would stop spinning. So it seems appropriate that the building around her crumbles as she clings to her wife’s sweatshirt and  _ shatters _ .

They were supposed to have more time. This wasn’t fair, they were  _ supposed to have more time _ ! 

They were supposed to go to Paris, Richie thought the city was overrated but Eddie had always wanted to go. She was going to take two weeks off and they were going to go to Paris but now they never will. Eddie will never see Paris or eat a “real croissant” or kiss Richie under the Eiffel Tower like they were the stars of their own cheesy rom com because Eddie was  _ dead _ .

They were supposed to get a new dog and a cat, they had just been waiting for the right time to get them together so they could be sure they liked each other. But now there never would be a right time because even if she still gets them she won’t be getting them with Eddie.

They were supposed to have more anniversaries and more birthdays and grow old together.

Richie Kaspbrak-Tozier wasn’t supposed to exist without Eddie Kaspbrak-Tozier.

The other Loser’s are trying to get her to leave but she _can't. Why_ _don’t they get that_! Eddie said she had to follow her. She needs to _stay with her_!

Eddie’s head flops uselessly against her shoulder as she hugs her corpse against her chest.

Eddie’s corpse.

_ eddie eddie eddie _

Richie didn’t know it was possible to feel like this, so entirely hollow and untethered, like everything in her chest and stomach had been viciously scraped away by the claw that  _ went through Eddie’s chest  _ and whatever was connecting her her knees to the rest of her body and her feet to the floor segmented with a painful snap the second Eddie closed her eyes.

_ EDDIE _ .

Ben carries her out and she thrashes and kicks and Bev and Stan keep sobbing out reassurances but she hates them.  _ She hates them! Let her stay with EDDIE! _

It takes all five of them to hold her back as the house collapses on top of the love of her life. She collapses too, eyes squeezed shut and body shaking apart at the seams.

She opens her eyes in an apartment building.

_ Eddie _ ?

No. It's Bev. He looks scared, bruise blooming across his cheek, and even though Richie hates him  _ hates him  _ **_hates him_ ** for dragging her from Eddie she wants to kill whoever hurt him.

His eyes look like they used to when he talked about his father.

And, honestly, she could never really hate Beverly Marsh.

Tanya Rogan-Marsh throws him down the stairs and calls him a cheater and a whore and screams that no one will believe him as she slams his head into the hardwood until he’s not moving anymore.

She leaves him there.

Richie rushes over to help him and stumbles over the body into a hotel room.

Bill is hanging in the closet.

Neck snapped at an unnatural angle and pale face still damp with tears.

_ I’m sorry Georgie I’m sorry Georgie I’m sorry Georgie _ stalls in the forward of the word document left open on the bed. 

Richie bursts into tears and her vision blurs. When it clears she’s in a bathroom.

Ben Hanscom is alone.

She shoves her fingers down her throat and pukes into the toilet. Richie winces sympathetically and tries to yank away the bottle of whiskey Ben uses to wash her mouth out.

She can’t reach it, she’s just a bit too far no matter how hard she tries to get closer. 

Ben staggers and tries to stand but collapses, head cracking against tile and leaking blood.

No one comes to help. Because Ben Hanscom is alone.

The bath begins to run and Richie’s head snaps up in time to watch Stan slit her wrists and smear IT on the wall in her blood.

Her husband breaks down the door and  _ screams. _

She feels like she’s going to throw up but instead she is sitting in the library. Mike Hanlon is restocking books when carnival music leaks from the archives.

Mike follows IT.

Richie follows her.

She watches the clown tear Mike apart, it doesn’t even eat her, just rips her apart limb from limb. No one seems to hear her screams. No one except Richie, the screams burrow into her skull with stunningly defined clarity and refuse to leave.

Richie walks up to the main room and sits, the soundtrack of Bev’s head cracking against hardwood and Ben’s puke hitting the toilet water and Mike and Patrick Uris-Blum’s screams and _ the claw slicing through Eddie’s chest right above her  _ playing on loop in her head until someone finally notices something is wrong, only due to the stench of the viscera beginning to rot.

Richie slumps, head in her arms, and sobs.

Her brain shorts out.

And then she’s crashing into the ground,  _ fuck  _ that hurts and she can’t reoirient herself until she hears Eddie.  _ Eddie. _

“ _ I think I killed it Rich!”  _

_ No please not again _ .

The second time Bev’s wife rapes him and shoves him off their balcony. It’s framed as a suicide. Headlines sob over the poor, poor widowed Tanya Rogan-Marsh.

Bill goes into Neibolt alone.

Ben tours her newest project. All the rooms are empty. She jumps off the roof and Richie wonders if she gave it so many floors on purpose.

Stan slits her wrists in the bathtub. Her husband isn’t even home.

Henry Bower stabs Mike in the back of the head in the library. There isn’t anyone left in Derry to stop him.

Her brain shorts out.

And then she’s crashing into the ground,  _ fuck  _ that hurts and she can’t reoirient herself until she hears Eddie.  _ Eddie. _

“ _ I think I killed it Rich!”  _

The 911 dispatcher laughs at Bev through the line, says he’s supposed to like it, that men can’t be raped, his wife says the same as she smothers him with a pillow.

Bill draws for the first time in years. Broken lines forming a yellow raincoat. She stabs herself in the eye with the pen.

Ben gets robbed at gunpoint and shot. No one notices and she bleeds out in the alleyway.

Stan slits her wrists in the bathtub. Her husband watches.

Mike drowns herself in the quarry.

Eddie is smiling on a couch Richie doesn’t recognize, her hair is too long, spilling along her back the way it did when Richie first met her, but it's  _ Eddie _ and she’s here and she’s  _ alive _ .

“Eds?” She almost collapses in relief.

“I could have been happy without you Richie.”

“What?” She goes to cup Eddie’s cheeks but something yanks her back, a cruel barrier showing her wife to her but not letting her bridge the distance between them.

“You killed me.”

“No! No I tried-I-”

“I HATE YOU! _ ” _

“ _ Eds- _ ” She starts, words choking on the sobs bubbling up her throat.

“I hate you  _ so much _ you  _ killed me _ ! I’m  _ dead  _ Richie!” Richie can’t speak, she’s crying too hard because Eddie looks  _ angry, looks like she hates her and she’s dead she’s dead she’s dead and Richie is alone-  _ Eddie palms Richie’s face with too sharp nails and turns her around. 

They’re on stage and the audience is empty. 

“ _ Beep Beep _ .”

Eddie kicks her in the back of the head and she tumbles into whiteness.

But quickly she’s not staring into the empty colorlessness of the rabbit hole. She’s watching herself, performing a horrible set, at age 25. There is no terribly familiar woman sitting in the second row, she doesn’t go get dinner with a not-really-stranger who changes her life.

Instead her comedy gets worse and her dresses get shorter, Steve pushing and insulting and insinuating things about her sexuality when she turns down dates until any resolve she might have had against him crumbles.

When she turns 27, in a weird burst of introspective confidence she tries to make an post for the MeToo movement, supporting it more than anything because Steve has hammered in that the men who grab her ass at stagedoor and the boyfriends who do things when she gets too drunk isn’t assault.

Her PR person deletes it, sends her an email about how her brand isn’t bullshit SJW feminism and her writers add in jokes insulting the movement that are so foul she tries everything in her very limited power not to have to make them. Steve makes her do it anyway and she gags through them until she doesn’t have a single fan who isn’t a disgusting man. Even then the jokes rub too many people the wrong way and her career tanks until a year later when she becomes infamously known as the comedian who broke up the marriage of some country singer and his wife. 

A picture of her doing the walk of shame from his hotel room is plastered over magazines across the country and her audience are flooded with horrible people, ravenous to get the scoop and a look at her. The writers add a joke into her set about being the best thing since Monica Lewinsky, it’s a hit that makes the audience stick around for more.

They bring up the country singer every interview, jokes about how he saved her career, magazines speculating about whether or not she is still in love with him and  _ what really happened that fateful night _ . 

_ What really happened _ is he forced her into the taxi to his hotel after slipping something in her drink and she’d locked herself in the bathroom naked and sobbing once she became lucid enough to move herself.

She can’t escape the reminders about it and she spirals.

She's alone, completely and entirely alone except for the photographers outside her house and Steve and her plastic surgeon.

She gets botox, she gets an undiagnosed eating disorder, she gets her stomach pumped twice, she gets the call and pukes off a balcony before bombing a set.

Eddie dies in the cistern and Richie never tells her she loves her.

Eddie who never buys tickets to Richie’s comedy show, too pressured by her fiance and her mother’s expectations.

Her and Myran get married in a cold, uncomfortable church, the only guest from her side is her mother, just as overbearing and horrible as Richie remembers. 

Myran’s family overflows the rest of the pews and the organza, rose covered church basement where they’re having the reception, big false smiles and judgemental questions about when she’s going to add ‘another little member’ to the Jones family. 

Her dress has a high lace neck and a massive skirt attached to the scratchy looking bodice, it is all the components of a dress Richie  _ knows _ her wife would rather die than wear. 

When they had they dressed up to go to the courthouse, not enough friends and not caring enough about having a real wedding with people they don’t care about when they could hop on a plane and go on their honeymoon, Eddie had worn a white pantsuit. She’d looked much prettier in it than she did uncomfortably waltzing with Myran in the tacky, massive gown that Richie halfways watches Myran pick out and buy for her.

He somehow gets even more controlling after Eddie Kaspbrak legally becomes Edith Jones.

It is like Richie is watching as Myran fucking Jones forces water down Eddie’s throat to douse the fire that has always been inside her, it’s one of her favorite things about her wife and watching as it slowly fizzles out makes Richie’s stomach fold inside out around itself.

Myran makes Eddie try for a baby seven times, even though a doctor sends them test results that say it would be unsafe for her to try and give birth. He throws it away and lies to her that it would be fine, like he wants her to get weak and he wants another thing to control and manipulate, which is fucking  _ abhorrent _ and Richie wishes she could do something more than watch.

Eddie doesn’t even argue every time he makes her try, too crushed and controlled to realize she should have a say in what her body goes through. If anyone asked Eddie she’d tell you she didn’t want kids, they didn’t particularly like her and she didn’t really like them. She was too loud and too scared she’d drop them to ever interact with one naturally.

But Myran makes her try.

He uses second miscarriage as an excuse to force her to quit her job, buys her more medication and finally says she may be too delicate to carry a child, like he knows her body best and not like a medical professional said before they even tried that it was dangerous.

Despite his angry rant about how she’s too fragile for it he makes her try again.

He stops letting her leave the house for longer than it would take to go to the grocery store, making it so that he and her mother are the only two people she can talk to.

Richie watches as her wife shrinks, neurotic and sickly, until she is exactly what Myran wants her to be.

He gets so awful that when Mike calls her back to Derry she has to wait until Myran goes to work and sneaks out of the apartment.

Eddie dies in the cistern and Richie never tells her she loves her.

The whole time she watches she feels like she’s falling, until she cracks against the floor and her brain clears of the horrible, heart wrenching alternate reality where her and Eddie never met each other again.

She looks up from the ground she is crumpled against and watches Bev drown in blood. Ben gets buried alive. An illusion of Georgie holds up a gun and shoots Bill through the forehead. She doesn’t see Stan, but there’s a bathtub in the corner and a bleeding arm hanging off the side, she digs her heels in so she doesn’t have to walk over and look to see who is inside, even if she can wager a guess.

Mike isn’t there. She doesn’t die, at least not from the clown, instead she kills herself 27 years later in her padded cell of Derry’s Asylum. And it's horrible and appalling but in the split second she is allowed to occupy her mind enough to think while she watches a Mike who looks closer to one hundred than seventy bash her brains in with her meal tray, that even though its selfish, at least she isn’t watching her wife impaled above her and feeling her blood spray across her face. 

At least she’s not watching Eddie die.

Her brain shorts out.

And then she’s crashing into the ground,  _ fuck  _ that hurts and she can’t reoirient herself until she hears Eddie.  _ Eddie. _

“ _ I think I killed it Rich!”  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pennywise said Eddie can have More Trauma... As A Treat and Richie can watch her wife and friends die hundreds of times... As A Treat.  
> Also I'm sorry I didn't write more of the ritual but i really didn't feel like rewriting the canon scene and it went pretty much exactly how the movie went. I wrote half this chapter literally moths ago and I am very excited to finally post it!  
> ALSO at the end that isn't Richie waking up from the deadlights, even if it sort of sounds like it, she has a lot more cycles of traumatic visions to loop through before that can happen


	20. Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie is stuck in the deadlights, Eddie's panicking, and they still have a clown to kill.

Eddie watches horrified as her wife, her incredible, brave,  _ idiot _ of a wife, runs headfirst at the clown, fist held aloft gripping a fucking  _ rock  _ like that is a goddamn suitable  _ weapon _ .

“Wanna play truth or dare? Here's the truth! You're a sloppy bitch! Let’s dance! Yipikaye Motherfu-'' Eddie stumbles back with her eyes closed, wincing at the sudden echoing crack of light that floods the room. She blinks hard trying to clear the spots dancing in her vision and  _ freezes _ , heart lodging itself uncomfortably in her throat.

Floating hundreds of feet off the ground, button up dangling off one shoulder and mouth hanging open like she’s trapped in a silent scream, is Richie.

Eddie can’t breathe. She feels like she can’t  _ move _ . Bill screaming in her head  _ Do you want Richie to die too  _ while her mental Richie fights back, shouting that she’s brave. But right now she doesn’t feel brave. Staring at her real Richie dangling above her, too still and too silent, she feels fucking terrified. 

If Eddie’s wife dies she is going to  _ lose her fucking mind _ .

The fence post Bev gave her burns in her palm and reluctantly she tears her gaze from her wife’s floating form, fingers tightening around the rusted metal. 

_ This kills monsters if you believe it does. This saves Richie if you believe it does. This gets your wife on the ground and back into your arms and kills the clown that ruined all your friend’s lives but only if you believe it does. _

She thinks horribly of all the ways this could go wrong. 

She could miss, giving away her location and getting her stuck in the deadlights herself, unable to do anything to help. 

She could hit one of the other Losers. 

She could hit  _ Richie _ . The fence post lodging in her wife’s back, piercing through her stomach, lodging in her wife’s spine, leaving her paralyzed, lodging in her wife’s head, cracking through her skull and spilling her brain matter on the sewer floor. 

But she can’t overthink this. She can’t hesitate or Richie will  _ definitely _ die and that can’t fucking happen. 

“ _ This kills monsters if you believe it does. _ ”

Steadying her hand and she lines up her shot.

“BEEP BEEP MOTHERFUCKER!” The spear soars directly to its mark and the clown  _ screams _ , retreating back as Richie  _ drops _ .

Eddie tries desperately to block out the crack that echoes through the cavern as she hits the ground, throwing herself over Richie, grabbing for her hands, her hair, her face just anything that reassures her that she’s here, she’s okay.

“ _ I think I killed it Rich! _ ” Her grin falters and then crumbles entirely when she realizes that Richie isn’t responding, “Richie, baby, _ come on, wake up. _ ”

Through her panic she barely hears someone shout her name before she’s being tackled across the floor, Richie's slack body grasped firmly in her arms on instinct. A claw chinks into the ground, cracking the stone directly where she was laying. If she wasn’t pushed out of the way it would have speared straight through her. She feels ill, brain barely processing the idea of how easily she could have just  _ died. _

“Holy fucking  _ shit _ !” Stan snaps her head down to where she’s collapsed over the two of them, chest heaving and eyes swimming in concern.

“You’re welcome. Are you guys okay?” Eddie ignores her, refocusing her attention on Richie, who is flopped uselessly in her lap, “ _ Fuck,  _ Eddie, her  _ eyes _ .”

“Thanks Stan, I hadn’t noticed!” She knows she should feel bad for snapping at her friend who had just saved her life but she can’t bring herself to, she’s too preoccupied staring into her wife’s still milky eyes, mouth stuck horribly cracked open, “Richie, you aren’t allowed to fucking die on me,  _ come on baby, wake the fuck up _ .” 

Stan lays a hand on her shoulder as her voice cracks but she can barely feel it. Richie isn’t  _ moving,  _ the blood dripping from her nose still sluggishly drifting upwards, clouded white eyes staring unseeing into Eddie’s. There has to be a way to fix this, there  _ has to _ ! Her body flops uselessly as Eddie shakes her. It feels too much like a corpse, cold and unresponsive, for Eddie to cope with it, the shallow rise and fall of her chest acting as the sole thing that's keeping her from shattering into a thousand pieces. 

She doesn’t know what to _ do _ because her wife can’t be stuck like this, she  _ can’t _ . 

She doesn’t care what Richie says, Eddie  _ needs her _ . 

She needs Richie’s warmth curled against her chest as they sleep, she needs Richie’s stupid jokes and she needs the delighted little laugh she makes in the middle of one when it really amuses her, she needs Richie’s hand to grip hers when she’s stressed or upset or they’re watching a particularly scary movie,  _ just a movie, _ becuase in real fucking life all the monsters are supposed to be CGI and stuck behind a screen. 

She needs everything to go back to normal and she needs Richie to tell her everything is going to be okay but she can’t do that because she  _ isn’t waking up _ .

“I can’t lose her! Stan, I  _ can’t _ !” She is breaking. 

Stan is mumbling her own tearful reassurances above her but she can’t bring herself to care enough to listen, Ben shouts something, too muffled by the distance and the blood pounding in her ears for her to make it out. 

Ben.  _ Ben.  _ Unprovoked a long suppressed memory jams itself into the forefront of her psyche.

_ Beverly Marsh is floating. _

_ Eddie wipes the vomit off her forehead with the back of her wrist, pity coursing through her veins as Ben uselessly shakes him and cries his name to unresponsive ears. She doesn’t really get how devastated she is, this is horrifying but there is really nothing they can do about it, even if Ben keeps insisting they can still help him. _

_ Maybe Ben is just more in tune with her emotions than her. _

_ Maybe Ben is just more sensitive. _

_ Maybe Ben is just kissing Beverly Marsh on his cold, dead lips.  _

_ Ew. Thats fucking disgusting doesn’t she know how many germs can be passed through a normal kiss? Even worse, a kiss in a  _ **_sewer_ ** _? _

_ When she pulls back to the same blank stare and her face crumples Eddie suddenly gets it. _

_ Oh. _

_ OH. _

_ Ben loves Beverly. _

_ Shit. Poor Ben. _

_ But then Beverly snaps awake and his feet hit the floor and they have different problems to deal with than poor Ben with her hopeless crush and magic lips. _

Blankly she remembers in the nightmare apartment something real sparking in Richie’s eyes for a split second after they kissed before the glassy fragility set back in. 

She doesn’t stop to think it over, just gently cups her wife under the chin to close her locked open jaw and crashes into a kiss.

For a moment nothing happens. Stan’s hand tightens on her shoulder and she feels like the walls are crashing down around her because without Richie Tozier the  _ world stops spinning. _

Until she gasps awake, eyes beautifully, wonderfully clear.

“Eddie?” Grinning down, vision blurry with tears, she nods, pressing their foreheads together before Richie jolts them to the side.

“Hey,  _ hey, Rich,  _ it's okay, we’re okay, I’ve got you!” But Richie is still gripping her painfully tight, head scanning back and forth so fast she looks dizzy. Her whole body is quivering in Eddie’s arms _. _ Eddie grabs her cheeks to force her head still, “Baby you’re  _ okay! _ ”

“I can’t… it’s not… I want it to just  _ stop! _ ” she sounds so hollow and confused that Eddie can’t help the tears that pour down her own cheeks, “ _ Eddie! _ ” 

And she throws herself against her, sobbing so hard she’s  _ shaking _ while Eddie pets her tangled, greasy hair and shushes her, desperately trying to calm her down. She’s pressed against her chest like she’s guarding it, refusing to move even as Eddie tries to pull away to look at her, weeping against the crook of her neck and pressing her hands to the center of Eddie’s spine like it’s the only thing keeping her from floating away again.

“I hate to break this up but we still have a pretty big problem!” Stan shouts from behind them, another claw slashing dangerously close. Richie chokes out a sob and tries to shield Eddie even as it drags away. Eddie finally makes her look up at her, cupping her cheek, thumb trailing her cheekbone, but that only makes her cry harder for reasons Eddie cannot even begin to comprehend.

Suddenly Bev is there, gently pushing Eddie away and taking Richie’s face in his own hands, lightly enough she can push him away if she wants. She doesn’t, crumpling into his touch with such a broken look in her eyes that Eddie is pretty sure Bill’s hand that has found her arm is the only thing keeping her from going to kill the clown single handedly.

“Oh  _ honey _ ,” He uselessly wipes her steadily pouring tears and Eddie can’t help but selfishly feel like it should be her doing that, not  _ Bev _ , “I know everything  _ sucks  _ right now but you’re out of the deadlights, I  _ promise _ . You’re probably really disoriented and confused but this is real and we’re all alive. Okay?” Richie sucks in a rattling breath and nods unconvincingly, pulling away and rubbing her eyes too hard. Eddie knows she’s doing it because she’s embarrassed for letting them all see her cry, so she gently pries Bill off and grabs one of Richie’s shaking hands away from her face.

The focus veers away from Richie once they all see that she’s okay, though Bev and Stan’s gazes linger just a second longer than the others, and soon everyone is searching fruitlessly for a way to win. 

Eddie finds herself unable to focus on the conversation. 

Not when every time she blinks the image of Richie, still and white eyed, flashes in the darkness. 

Richie, timid and scared  _ of her _ and downing pills like they’re water because  _ a version of her told her to _ . 

Richie, puking black sludge into her mouth and collapsing motionless, the leper behind her like it could possibly be scarier than a world without Richie Tozier.

_ Wait _ .

The leper. The leper shrinking and scared when Eddie is too angry to be terrified.

“I think I know how to kill IT.” 

Eddie finds that with her wife next to her, warm and alive and hand wrapped so tightly around hers it almost hurts, she isn’t scared.

She’s not fucking scared at all.

The clown is smiling as they approach, sitting back on its haunches with a smug fucking expression like he has already won.

“How's floating treating ya Richie? Wonder if there's anyone left on the ground to save you.” Her hand tightens in Eddie’s, she wants to kill him for bringing back the uncertainty that had almost faded in her wife’s eyes, she is  _ going to  _ kill him.

“ _ Fuck you _ .” Richie manages before Eddie can say anything, voice steadier than she had been expecting. IT hesitates, faltering for just for a second before his stupid smile cracks wider, leaning back with a leg poised like he’s going to swipe.

“ _ YOU DON'T SCARE US!”  _ Bill bellows, high and angry, entirely the leader Eddie had relied on throughout her childhood. Any trepidation that might have still held her back shifts easily into rage.

“Oh _really_. Is that why Stan tried to slit her wrist instead of coming back to face me?” IT is trying to taunt them, unnerve them, but their tone is too panicked, fast and desperate. Stan swallows hard, pushing away the hand Mike tries to lay on her shoulder.

“I don’t know why I was so afraid, Bill’s right, you are  _ nothing _ .” IT flinches like Stan had dealt a physical blow and she looks very satisfied with herself, even if she leans in when Mike hesitantly tries to comfort her again.

They call it what it is:  _ a weak fucking clown that had managed to fail the one thing it was supposed to be able to do. _

_ IT wasn’t scary. _

_ IT had nothing to feed on because they weren’t afraid. IT was just an _ **_illusion_ ** _ of an old woman, a dead dog, a leper, a painting, just a  _ **_clown_ ** _ who had to rely on  _ **_pretending_ ** _ to be things that were actually scary because IT could never hope to be scarier than real life. _

_ They forced it into hibernation when they were TWELVE and they were done letting it control them, they were older and they were broken but they were ready to finish the job. _

IT shrinks, screaming bullshit about being the eater of worlds as they crowd around it, like they aren’t destroying it with insults you could hear in a middle school girls bathroom. 

All they have left is a disgusting infant sized skeleton with ITs skin loosely stretched over the frame, almost as though it was melting into the filthy sewer water puddling across the cistern floor.

Mike steps forward, hand hovering over the clown’s broken form momentarily like she can’t comprehend that this is going to be over; that she’s going to be free from this war she’s been forced to fight alone for twenty one years. She plunges her fist through ITs chest cavity, a sick cracking of shrunken ribs and squelching, blackened body matter as she easily tears its heart out. 

“ _ You’ve all grown up! _ ” IT crows weakly, a last attempt to get under their skin before Mike closes her fingers around the heart, crumbling the heart, and with it the wailing corpse, into dust.

They can all feel it, the rush of cool air that pours down their spines, the sudden lightness that surrounds them like the invisible shackles that have bound them to their horrible pasts are finally broken. 

Mike stumbles back into Bill, who immediately wraps her arms around her, incredulous laughter muffled by how her face is pressed against Mike’s hair. Ben pulls Beverly into a hug and for the first time since getting back to Derry he doesn’t tense, just flops into it, hugging her back so tightly she lifts off the floor. Stan is crying, hand clasped over her smile even if her shining, teary eyes can’t hide how overwhelmingly relieved she is and Ben quickly yanks her into her and Bev’s hug.

But Eddie doesn’t see any of that.

Her face is buried into Richie’s shoulder, her wife pressing fervent kisses to the side of her head, both hugging the other so closely that she doesn’t think anyone could pry them apart because they’re  _ okay _ . They  _ made it. _

Richie tenses in her arms and Eddie’s hold somehow tightens, worry instantly flooding back through her viens so fast she feels unstable.

“Wait. We need to get  _ out- _ ”

Before she can ask for clarification a massive crack echoes through the cavern, rubble beginning to tumble around them as the floor under them shakes.

“ _ Holy shit! _ ” Everyone breaks away from their respective holds, sprinting for the exit with horrified urgency. Eddie feels Richie’s hand slip from hers.

Despite her previous warning, Richie was still standing frozen in the center of the cistern, eyes squeezed shut and hands wrapped tightly around the sides of her jacket as her whole body shook.

“ _ Richie! _ ” Her wife doesn’t seem to register her call, someone grabs her arm to stop her, she doesn’t know who, tunnel vision focused on Richie standing in the center of a room collapsing around her as she rips away from the hold and barrels away from the exit and to Richie.

She's mumbling  _ no _ over and over and Eddie feels her heart shatter as she grabs her hands, attempting to yank her out. 

“No no  _ no! _ I can’t leave her again, I can’t  _ do it _ !” Richie sobs, trying to pull away.

“ _ RICHIE! we need to get the fuck out _ !” This time her words seem to have an impact, she snaps her eyes open and chokes on Eddie’s name, legs barely catching up her head as they finally make their way outside. The way Richie seems to be falling over herself to stand over Eddie, like a human shield against the collapsing infrastructure, makes her horribly uncomfortable, like she’s prioritizing Eddie over herself. Reluctantly she lets it happen, at least she’s not standing still, waiting to be crushed. 

Ben and Bev help tug them up and they all stumble into a pile across the dead grass, watching in silent reverence as Neibolt concaves in on itself.

All seven Losers clinging desperately to each other, traumatized and filthy but  _ alive _ .

“ _ You’re here, you’re okay! _ ” Richie beams, grabbing her and pressing their foreheads together.

“Yeah baby, we’re okay, we’re both okay.” Absently she hears their friend’s shocked and relieved ramblings, but at that moment Richie yanks her into a desperate kiss and Eddie falls into it fully.

“This is real?” She murmurs hopefully as they break apart, hesitant in a way that makes Eddie’s stomach churn.

“It’s real, I  _ promise _ .”

“Okay…  _ okay, okay _ .”

They go to the quarry despite Eddie’s insistance that they should head to the Townhouse or the fucking hospital becuase Bev is covered in blood and Mike was crushed by a tentacle and Richie fell hundreds of feet onto a stone floor and they were  _ all  _ probably full of an absurd amount of gray water. 

Bev gets to the edge first and peers over the side, sturdying himself like he’s going to dive over before pausing and gesturing widely to the water.

“ _ Ahem _ , Rachel Tozier, I believe someone told me girls are braver than boys and jumped off first last time we were here. Care to put your money where your mouth is?”

“Why yes, I do indeed, Beverly Marsh.”

Eddie fuzzily remembers Bev and Richie racing to see who could jump off the quarry first every time they went swimming. Richie shoving Bev back when he got a headstart and playing the ‘you can’t hit a  _ girl  _ with _ glasses _ ’ card when he tried to retaliate. Claiming female superiority when she beat him, knowing full well he couldn’t do the same for male superiority the times he made it over first or six hyperactive fourteen year old girls would then make it their mission to drown him the entire time they were swimming.

She fully expected Richie to leap over the ledge, her wife was slightly too similar to herself at fourteen to balk at her and Bev’s most sacred competition, so she didn’t really protest despite how much she wanted to.

Well, until Richie let go of her hand and wrapped her arms around her waist, dragging her with her to the noisy delight of the rest of their friends.

“ _No!_ Let me _go!_ _RICHIE KASPBRAK-TOZIER I WILL DIVORCE YOU!_ ” Richie laughs against her cheek, kissing her apologetically in the same place before they topple over the edge. Eddie shrieks, plunging into the cold, clear silence of the quarry and shoving Richie off, cursing her out as she bobs above the water. 

“Oh  _ come on _ , I was just following the rules and making it so you could follow me!” Richie swears, unconvincing based on how hard she’s laughing as she wipes the water out of her eyes.

“I hate you!”

“No you don’t.” Eddie calls her a cocky bastard before she drags her into a kiss, too high off the adrenaline of being alive and okay to be too annoyed.

“Get a room!” Stan calls over the edge, gasping in mock offense when Eddie flips her off.

“Get in the water, fucker!” 

“Not a chance, Trashmouth!” She’s too distracted to realize Bev inching up behind her until he shoves her forward over the ledge, cackling as she yelped and flailed her way underwater before leaping himself. Ben and Bill follow quickly after, leaving Mike standing on the ledge looking down at them.

Eddie missed her, she hadn’t even remembered her and she had missed her, missed all of the Losers even when she had her own next to her this whole time. Something inside of her  _ aches _ at the idea of Mike being all alone, missing them and able to remember what was missing, waiting and watching from the wings in a town that hates her.

She plunges over the edge and for one perfect moment as she crashes under and joins the rest of the Losers in the water the world feels right.

Richie presses their palms together, lacing their fingers with practiced familiarity but it feels different, there is barely a change but it is almost as if they slide together smoother. It’s not right but it’s not wrong either, a good kind of different.

She pries them apart by the heels of their hands, fingers still laced just enough that she can see their blank palms while still touching her wife.

“Guys?” Richie looks down and sucks in a breath, holding up their loosely locked hands so their palms are visible. Mike bursts into tears, staring at her own hand with big, wide eyes.

“ _ It’s over _ .” It’s half a sob, half a laugh but there's a hopeful finality to it, like up until now she had been worried it wasn’t real. 

Group hugs have always been awkward with seven people, a tangle of too many bodies wrapped together with too many limbs, but hugging Mike as she happily weeps into Bev’s shoulder feels important, a first step for a thank you she will never ask them for but they need to give.

It ends abruptly, Mike dunking Bill underwater and Stan using the distraction to get revenge on Bev for pushing her and subsequently sending a wave of water over half of them which dissolves the sincerity of the moment into a full on splash war. Eddie thinks, as she wraps her arms around Richie’s stomach and uses her as a human shield against Bill’s blatantly targeted sweeps of water, that more adults should have splash wars, it is its own form of dysfunctional therapy.

Eventually Richie grabs her hand and leans her chin against her shoulder, her whole body shaking with poorly suppressed laughter as she waves her hand towards a calmer part of the quarry a few feet away, more specifically the blurry orange-brownish-gray forms tangled together just below the surface.

“Holy shit.  _ Holy shit! _ ” She’d feel bad about how she accidentally calls the attention of the rest of their friends to the two but this sort of feels like a groundbreaking development in official Losers Club business.

“ _Get it_ _Benny Babe!_ ” Richie crows happily once the two surfaces, cheeks scarlet and hands tangled together.

“ _ Beep beep! _ ” Bev grumbles, but he’s grinning, laying his chin on top of Ben’s head as she buries her face in the crook of his neck and shouts for them to shut up. They do not shut up. Their catcalling and cheers gets much,  _ much _ louder. 

“Oh my god  _ shut up! _ We should have a chicken fight! We’re having a chicken fight now,  _ shut up! _ ” Bev demands loudly, scooping up a shrieking Ben and positioning her on his shoulders, she presses her giggles into his hair, cheeks and ears pink. 

Eddie crosses her arms and spins around to look at Richie expectantly, she rolls her eyes before clamoring up onto her shoulders.

“This isn’t the distraction you think it is!” Stan informs him loudly and he glares at her, sticking out his tongue before refocusing on the battle.

They lose, they lose miserably, Ben is apparently  _ buff _ and Bev has an absurd height advantage.

“Thats  _ homophobic! _ ” Richie declares as she surfaces, flopping her arms over Eddie’s shoulders as Ben cackles from where she is still balanced awkwardly on top of Bev.

“God, I miss my husband.” Stan comments drily over the chaos.

“Join me and Mike in our lonely corner!” Bill calls happily from where her legs wrapped around Mike’s waist like she’s getting a piggyback ride, playing absently with Mike’s hair. Stan cocks her eyebrow carefully, the mirth behind her eyes ruining any possible deadpan.

“Uh huh.” Bill looks terribly confused as they all dissolve into giggles, Mike looking terribly embarrassed and flipping them off half underwater instead of clarifying for Bill who keeps poking her face and asking what was so funny.

“ _ Does she actually not know she's been fucking flirting? _ ” Richie whispers unsubtly into her ear and she snorts, batting her lightly away to paddle over and shove Bill off Mike’s back.

“ _ What the fuck Eddie _ !” Bill sputters, missing the grateful look Mike shoots her before turning back to Bill to splash her directly in the face.

Stan and Richie team up against each other to dunk one another below the water, and Eddie bobs happily around between their friends before making the executive decision to join up with Stan much to Richie’s offended horror. With two against one it was barely difficult to tackle her underneath. It feels childish, the splashing and giggling and high five she exchanges with Stan, but she thinks they are entitled to a little childishness after what they’ve just been through.

Richie surfaces, hissing through a clenched grin, and the lighthearted silliness that had been fueling Eddie like adrenaline up until this point shatters into concern. The hiss is subtle, something Richie's clearly trying to hide but Eddie’s pretty sure her ears are now going to be constantly alert for any  _ possible _ sound of distress from her wife for the rest of her life.

“You okay?” It’s shriller than she intends for it to be, panicked enough that the conversation and splashing around lulls so everyone can quietly focus their attention on the pair, but she thinks it's warranted, even though Richie rolls her eyes. 

“‘M fine Eds” She dumps a handful of water over her head, snorting as Eddie sputters and wipes it away.

“ _ Asshole _ !” Part of her is worried she had just done that as a distraction. It’s a fair assumption, Richie can be a dumbass who probably didn’t want to  _ worry her _ or some bullshit, like dodging the question wasn’t a thousand times more concerning. She sinks below the water line so only her eyes are visible, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively before her face screws up in a poorly suppressed wince when Eddie shoves her shoulder.

“Okay, yeah no,  _ we’re taking a break! _ ” Richie protests loudly from under the water, a flurry of frustrated bubbles trailing as Eddie grabs her hand and begins to drag her to the shore line, she’s pretty sure someone lovingly calls them pussies and Richie whines even louder.

“They think we’re  _ lame _ Eddie.”

“Wow that sucks for you.” Richie huffs, carefully positioning herself on the grass next to Eddie so she can lean against her shoulder, “Okay, what's wrong?”

“Physically or emotionally?” She jokes, smile softening when Eddie glares at her.

“ _ Both  _ but I suppose physical is more pressing.”

“I mean it really isn’t though, my back sort of hurts but it’s fine.”

_ Richie drops and the noise her body makes it crashes into the floor echoes through the room. The fall could have  _ **_killed her_ ** _ , she could be  _ **_dead_ ** _. _

“Okay that is  _ not fine _ how long has it hurt? What the  _ fuck  _ Richie you need to tell me this shit! You fell from  _ so high! _ I knew we should have gone to the fucking hospital but  _ no _ -” Richie grabs her hands, breaking her from her (fully justified, thank you very much) panic.

“ _ Eds _ , it’s not a big deal, I really don’t want to go to the hospital right now.” She looks exhausted and miserable at the prospect, and despite herself Eddie finds herself at a loss for words.

Objectively she knows she should fight her on it. She  _ knows _ her wife has always hated going to the doctor regardless of how hurt or sick she is because she is maybe the worst person alive at taking care of herself. Eddie from literally two days ago she would have physically picked her up, put her into the car, and driven her to the hospital if that was what it took, but she wasn’t Eddie from two days ago. She was Eddie who all of a sudden couldn't stop seeing the illusion of her wife who was dependent on medication she didn’t need and an Eddie who forced her to do what ‘she thought was best’. 

Eddie really didn’t want to become her mother, she thinks she would rather die than hurt Richie the way her mother and Myran had hurt her. So despite how much she wants to keep arguing about it until Richie gets medical attention she shuts her mouth and lightly rubs her hand up and down her wife’s back, guilt gnawing at her gut at how much it feels like a mistake. 

Richie breathes out heavily, letting herself relax fully against Eddie’s side. The weight of her head on her shoulder helps to release some of the tension Eddie thinks she’s been holding in since entering Neibolt.

“Why didn’t you run?” It had been haunting her, the image of Richie standing still as rubble smashes around her, rambling about not wanting to leave someone and sobbing out heart breaking  _ no _ ’s.

“What do you mean?” Her tone is strained, it's clear she absolutely knows what Eddie means and she doesn’t want to think about it, but Eddie really needs to know before the horrified curiosity drives her insane.

“When Neibolt was collapsing, why didn’t you run?” Her voice shakes a little and she presses a kiss to the top of Richie’s hair, trying to ground herself.

“I didn’t want to leave you again.”

“What?”

“I kept watching… I kept watching you  _ die _ and they always made me  _ leave you _ … and I knew that you were okay but… but it was like everything was falling apart again and you were  _ gone again- _ ” She cuts off suddenly, hands shaking and hot tears soaking against Eddie’s shoulder.

“ _ I’m here, I love you, _ ” Eddie murmurs placatingly into her hair, pressing kisses in between her words until Richie’s shaking slowly subsides and she grabs Eddie’s hand, squeezing it weakly, “You alright?”

“‘m fine.”

They sit quietly for a little, trying to pretend things are normal as they watch their friends splash around, Eddie’s hand eventually shifting to rub small circles in the small of Richie’s back when she melts into her lap. A few feet away Ben tugs Bev back under the water.

“Stan owes me twenty bucks,” Richie hums softly, Eddie can’t tell if she’s curious or just making noise to let her know she’s listening, “She thought Ben and Bev were gonna wait a whole  _ month  _ before getting together, like they haven’t been making bedroom eyes at each other since we got here.” 

“That’s my girl, getting that coin with her keen observational skills about when our friends are gonna bone.” Richie giggles against her thigh.

“Oh  _ beep beep _ .” For telling Richie to shut up it comes out unbearably fond.

She thinks after a few minutes that Richie has fallen asleep, lazily brushing her hair out of her face to press a kiss against her temple, basking in her wife’s even, warm breath on her leg and the closeness of their friends. 

Being with the Losers had clicked a missing piece she wasn’t aware she was missing back into place and it just made the world seem that much brighter. 

It’s almost easy, when the sunlight glittering over the quarry bathes everything in a pale golden light, their friends’ laughter echoing over the water, to ignore the muted horror burrowed in her gut from what she’s just experienced. (Ignoring it, she thinks, is the best she can do when it feels like it won’t ever go away.)

“Hey Eds?” Richie mumbles after a while and she starts at the unexpected sound, untangling her hand from where it had been twisted in the grass to settle it in Richie’s hair.

“Yeah?”

“We should go to Paris for our honeymoon.” She can’t help her bemused laughter, knocking her knuckles lightly against the top of her head.

“Baby, we’re already married.”

“Yeah, but I was  _ thinking _ -” She shifts so she’s looking up at her, eye’s sleepy and soft and Eddie loves her  _ so fucking much  _ she doesn’t think there is any way in hell she would be able to deny Richie of whatever wild shit she’s about to propose, “We never had a wedding.”

“No, we didn’t.” She can’t say she really regrets how they got married, it wasn’t  _ traditional _ but they never had been a very traditional couple and getting all dressed up for the courthouse and subsequent dinner at Shake Shack had been fucking perfect for Eddie becuase she was getting married to Richie Tozier. 

“Well, we have enough friends for one now.” Huh, they did, didn’t they? That had been the main reasoning when they had initially decided against a wedding, it was way too much money for a couple with a small pool of acquaintances and no close family members, but now they had their five best friends in the world back, and they  _ were _ their family.

“Vow renewal wedding?” Richie bent a blade of grass into a circle and held it in her face, waving it enticingly.

“Vow renewal wedding if it means you’re taking me to Paris.” She plucked up the grass, letting it easily unravel straight in her fingers before shoving it behind her ear.

“You’re  _ using me _ for  _ France _ ?”

“Yup!” She’s sure it’s not very convincing considering how sappily she’s smiling down at Richie, still rubbing little circles down her spine.

“So… you know... next time someone asks, technically I proposed.”

“No. No, that's not how that  _ works _ , I still proposed first!” But Richie has a shit eating grin that tells her she’s about to lose the bragging rights she’d had ever since proposing to Richie three days before she’d planned to propose to Eddie.

“Sorry, babe, we’re all tied up!”

“I mean, I could still retract my yes.” Richie pouts up at her before quickly turning her head back to the quarry.

“ _ STAN WANNA BE MY MAID OF HONOR? _ ” 

“ _ Yes? What?”  _ All their friends are staring at them from the water, looking rightfully confused (and in Stan’s case, flattered) but Richie doesn’t provide context, just looks back up at her with a smile that is a confusing mix of earnest cockiness.

“Well we have a guest now, so it’d be rude to cancel the wedding this far in.”

“You’re a  _ dick _ .” But she isn’t, she’s adorable and romantic and the love of Eddie’s life, so she leans over and kisses her as hard as she can.

“I love you Eddie Kaspbrak-Tozier.” Richie breaks away to tell her, teary eyed and beaming.

“I love you too Richie Kaspbrak-Tozier.” She whispers, pressing a lighter kiss to the tip of her nose.

“ _ Hey! Have you guys… not been married? _ ” Bev asks loudly and Richie snorts against her thigh.

_ “ _ We can get married twice!” Eddie defends unhelpfully.

_“No you can’t!_ ”

“Don’t tell us what to do!” Richie retaliates, comfortably resettling into Eddie’s lap and laying an arm over her eyes. Eddie leans back, propped up on her elbows and staring absently up at the sky, ignoring their friends loud, confused protests.

“They’re assholes.” Richie comments idly and Eddie nods.

“Yeah, but I missed them.”

“Me too,” She shifts a little, fingers finding the edge of Eddie’s sleeve playing gently with the material, “We're gonna be okay now, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re gonna be fine.” And for the first time since Mike called them, Eddie doesn’t feel like she's lying when she says it.

Maybe not right now, maybe not weeks from now, but they're both here and they're both alive and eventually they're gonna be fine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all can you fucking IMAGINE if I killed Eddie after 20 chapters of this that would be WILD


	21. Aftershocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pennywise is dead but that doesn't mean everything is over.  
> (TW! Death mention, vauge mentions of dissociation/general trauma)

The others dragged themselves out of the water eventually, collapsing around the pair in a content pile of limbs, putting great care into dripping as much water as they possibly could on the partially dried Kaspbrak-Toziers.

It was like the adrenaline had seeped out into the water, all seven happily exhausted and tangled around each other. Richie shifted from where she was curled around Eddie’s lap, Bill’s legs propping right next to her across her wife’s knees. One hand found Ben’s hair and tugged it out of its tangled ponytail, working through it with her fingers just to have something to do with her bottled up energy. A hand that was too big and warm to be Eddie’s buried itself in her hair in return, a quick glance up tells her it’s Mike, who’s looking over them with the same bright smile Richie remembers from childhood, the smile that made you feel as though could place your life in her hands and know that she’d protect it with more care than you did yourself.

“Anyone else feel like we’re about to have an orgy?” She says without really thinking about it, her eyes are closed but she can still picture the face Eddie is making, scrunched up nose and extremely well concealed amusement. Mike’s fingers leave her hair and flick directly in the center of her forehead as Bev chuckles out a “No, thanks.”

“Too tired, sorry.” Bill comments into her palms.

“Lame.”

“Beep fucking Beep.” Stan says from somewhere behind her, tone dripping reluctant fondness she’s doing a shitty job hiding, “And anyway I think Eddie might kill us if we tried to have sex with you, sorry.”

“I would  _ absolutely _ kill you. It’s true.” Eddie’s tone is far more threatening than it needs to be which sets them all into delirious laughter.

“My phone is _destroyed_ and I blame you, Beverly.” Stan whines, Richie turns her head to watch her shaking out a waterlogged cell phone, she is suddenly aware of how empty her back pocket is. Hopefully Eddie was smart enough to have left her’s in their room because Richie’s phone is totally floating through the gray water of a Derry sewer right now. 

Bev and Stan squabble absently for a while, Bev claiming it was definitely destroyed at some point in Neibolt and Stan arguing that being pushed into the water definitely didn’t  _ help _ . 

“How am I supposed to tell my husband I’m alive without a  _ phone _ ?”

“Wait until we get back to the Town House?” Ben offers softly and Stan groans dramatically into Eddie’s shoulder.

“Ew, get  _ off _ your hair is still  _ so wet _ !” She swats an offended looking Stan away.

“Baby, you’re literally covered in quarry water.” Richie snorts and Eddie sticks her tongue out at her, flopping her damp sleeve in her face.

“It’s so fucking weird hearing her call Eddie that instead of just watching them both hopelessly pine.” Stan comments, offending wet hair tucked behind her shoulders and away from Eddie.

The rest of their friends mumble in agreement.

“Okay, but Eddie didn’t hopelessly pine! That was my specialty,” Richie argues, noting with raised eyebrows how Eddie’s cheeks have started to flush scarlet as everyone collapses into laughter, “Oh me, oh my! Care to share something with the class my dear?”

“No! Shut the fuck up!”

“Oh she had, dare I say, the biggest fucking crush on you. You should have  _ seen her _ after you moved, it was like she was in  _ mourning _ !” Ben manages before Eddie slaps a hand over her mouth and Richie cackles happily.

“Aw, honey, that's so  _ embarrassing _ !”

“Okay Mrs. Carved-Our-Initials-In-The-Kissing-Bridge.”

Richie props herself up on her elbows to kiss her instead of retaliating.

Their friends offer a much less enthusiastic round of catcalling for them then they had for Bev and Ben, which is fair enough, but they still get their whistles and sleepy cheers.

“Damn, if you guys are impressed by that you should see us when we’re not traumatized from just murdering a clown.” Richie mumbles and Eddie pokes her nose exasperatedly.

“Beep beep.” 

“Bitch.” Both of their statements are softened with the sappy grins they level each other with.

“No, but really guys, you should come visit us sometime soon in LA, we could have dinner or something.” Richie offers out to the rest of the group.

“I’d be more than happy to come as long as you have literally nothing to do with making dinner, Richie.” Mike grins and everyone cackles their agreement.

“Alright, ye of little faith, Eddie can make dinner if you feel like getting _food poisoning_.”

“Oh  _ fuck you! _ I’m not  _ that bad _ !” 

She’s not wrong, she really isn’t all that bad, her cooking isn’t anything to write home about but it’s passable. She’s a better baker though, far too precise for the “experimental flair” Richie likes to claim every good chef needs. Her dishes either came out blandly by the book or she went overboard and destroyed whatever she’d been trying to cook. 

And well, sometimes she just fucked things up as badly as she used to when she’d first tried out cooking, hence the  _ food poisoning  _ warning _. _

“Okay but I’m  _ better  _ at it.”

“I  _ guess _ .”

“No way _ Richie _ is the better cook, I’m not buying it.” Bev states which Richie understands, to anyone who didn’t have an intimate knowledge of how the two of them worked it really made more sense that Eddie was better at literally everything. Honestly that made more sense to Richie regardless because Eddie was incredible, even if Eddie passionately disagreed with her about her perspective on them both.

“ _ No _ , she  _ is  _ better.” Eddie grumbles, falsely reluctant.

“Can we stop talking about food, I’m fucking  _ starving _ .” Bill interrupts, as if her words have some sort of magical effect (perhaps they do, it’s  _ Bill _ , and she’s always been gifted in convincing them all of things without even realizing) Richie is suddenly aware of her own hunger gnawing at her stomach and Eddie lets out a indistinct grumble that Richie has been made well aware in several years of marriage meant ‘I’m going to get really annoying unless I get food right fucking now.’

The other Losers chime in their agreement and Mike brings up a newer deli they can get good sandwiches from as they untangle themselves.

“What? No chinese?” Eddie pauses from where she’s been helping Richie up to drop her fully into the grass, she ignores the twinge that sparks up her spine as it hits the ground in favor of beaming up at her wife with what she is sure is an unconvincingly innocent grin.

“Beep. Beep.” 

“That’s very fair.” She was pretty positive the Kaspbrak-Tozier household was never getting another late night chinese food delivery, which was terribly unfortunate as they’d built up a wonderful rapport with almost all of the delivery men from their favorite place, but she thinks, at this point, if someone so much as showed her a fortune cookie she’d probably throw up on them. 

She isn’t prepared for the wave of vertigo that washes over her when they begin to distance themselves from the quarry, someone’s hand finds her arm to steady her.

“You okay?” Stan whispers quietly enough that no one else seems to notice, which she’s grateful for, she really didn’t want to worry Eddie any more than she probably had.

“Yeah, yeah totally.” Stan looks supremely unconvinced, she’d always been the best at sniffing out Richie-bullshit, but she doesn’t say anything, just loops their elbows together and drags her back to the group which had slowly moved forward without them.

She was not okay. She didn’t know if it was the distance from the quarry or how much this all felt far too normal or something else entirely but everything suddenly felt so much less real, like at any moment the nightmare would start back up again and she’d find she was still in the deadlights. Sounds felt too distant and the light filtered through the trees too specifically and everything was far too perfect. The calm before a storm everyone seemed convinced wasn’t going to come. 

Sandwiches didn’t help, not that she was really expecting them to. Eddie’s complaints about wait times and the man who made their food not wearing gloves sort of did, though. It was just so specific and Eddie that the little pressure gauge in her head that had been quivering in between still floating and awake dipped slightly closer to the latter. 

Stan kept asking if she was okay, not out loud per say, but with furtive glances and frustrated eye contact, she just really didn’t know how to explain. It didn’t seem like a casual deli lunch conversation to lay out your existential dread that you’re permanently tethered in liminal space or limbo or some bullshit to your childhood best friend. 

So she eats her sandwich and holds Eddie’s hand and pretends she is a perfectly stable individual who isn’t halfway through a mental breakdown.

It works up until they get back into the Townhouse and she is reminded she actually murdered two things today, except one thing was an interdimensional demon clown who ate children and the other was a human person. Well, one could debate if you had to choose a person who was even vaguely like IT, Henry Bowers was a close enough comparison, but he was also a human person whose skull Richie had obliterated with a television set. 

Bowers’ corpse is gone. It’s just fucking  _ gone  _ which really isn’t helping her think any of this is fucking real  _ at all _ .

“Blood splatter kind of looks like a turtle, that’s crazy.” She comments before puking all over the carpet, which she thinks is an incredibly fair reaction even though their friends groan in disgust. Well, Eddie doesn’t participate to the group disgust, but a quick glance tells her Eddie is fucking panicking (which, once again, a fair reaction).

“Holy shit. I forgot  _ that we _ … where the fuck is  _ his body _ ?” Richie ushers her and their friends out of the room before Eddie can fixate more on it, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead before trying to go in and get their stuff. Eddie grabs her jacket immediately to stop her before looking embarrassed and letting go.

“I’m gonna be right back Eds.”

“Yeah… yeah I know.” 

She tries not to look at the blood stain under the TV where the body is supposed to be as she scoops up their still-packed bags, it’s hard not to stare at it. It really does look like a turtle.

She helps Eddie flush out the cut in her cheek in Bill’s bathroom while Mike finds them the keys to a new room. It takes forever, a cycle of water and saline and hydrogen peroxide patting through the hole and onto Eddie’s tongue, until she’s satisfied. Richie presses a kiss to her cheek absentmindedly, recoiling so fast when Eddie yelps in pain that her back hits the wall (the wave of pain that richotets throughout her whole body is probably fine, well it's emphatically  _ not fine _ but Eddie would freak out and she doesn’t want to go to a hospital, especially if she only has a few more hours before the deadlights kick in and make everything go to shit. If she’s being truly honest the dull ache makes everything feel more real, but she doesn’t like to think about that).

“I’m so sorry, holy fucking shit I forgot.”

“It’s fine.” Eddie winced, prodding at the hole before Richie can slap her hand away from it.

“Want me to bandage it?”

“ _ Yes _ but it should probably air out for a little.” They both scrunch their noses in disgusted solidarity before Richie carefully kisses her uninjured cheek and stands up, back popping concerningly as she stretches.

“Want the first shower? I’m sure Mike has found us a room by now, you could break in a nasty, never before cleaned, absolutely fucked in Derry bathtub!” She flourishes her arms in front of her face to go with her old timey announcer voice.

“Appealing.” Eddie grimaces before taking her outstretched hand.

Their new room looks exactly like their old one, without discussing it Eddie silently locks the windows and Richie unplugs the TV and pushes it into the closet. 

“Hey, I love you.” She settles on the floor, leaning against the closed closet door. Eddie blinks hard from where she had been spacing out into the dusty window curtains and smiles softly at her, making her way over and settling in her lap.

“I love you too.”

It’s nice to just kiss, no cataclysmic disaster that they need each other's comfort to cope with or demon clown curse to break. All the chaos in her head silences, leaching out to something familiarly comfortable, safe and warm for just a moment. 

“You’re gross.” Her hand buried in Richie’s matted curls says volumes about how much she really cares about that right now, she kisses her again before breaking away, “Go shower.”

“You don’t want the first one?”

“I… No. I’m okay.” Richie sort of wants to push, this is weird as fuck behavior and it feels like it should worry her.

But she thinks she understands when Eddie lingers in the doorway, watching as she slides open the shower curtain. Eddie would have brought it up if it was something she wanted to talk about, so she locks the bathroom window without a word.

Eddie kisses her one more time, firm and half smiling, before leaving, only closing the door part way.

When she closes her eyes, warm water crashing over her ears, everything rushes away.

Nothing is real but nothing quite feels fake either. 

She’s not floating and she’s not grounded, nothing really feels like it exists.

She stays in there, forehead pressed against the cool tile wall and mind blessedly blank until Eddie knocks on the door and she’s snapped back into awareness.

“Richie, are you okay?”

“I’ll be out soon.” Eddie sounds in acknowledgement and doesn’t point out that she never really answered the question.

**-**

Richie settles herself next to Bev, he grins softly to her and presses a finger to his lips, gesturing to Ben who is fully passed out against his shoulder. Richie nods, eyes wide and eyebrows waggling suggestively like she hadn’t been watching from the doorway the whole time Ben was drifting off because she wasn’t about to interrupt whatever soft spoken, probably romantic conversation they were having in the lobby.

“Hey.” She leans a little against his side and he wraps the arm that isn’t holding Ben around her shoulder.

“Hey. Where’s Eddie?”

“I can do stuff without my wife!” She defends weakly and he levels her with a blank look, both quickly dissolving into delirious little giggles even though nothing is really all that funny. They’re just exhausted and high on the arbitrary need to be quiet for Ben, it almost feels like they’re 13 and the last ones awake at a sleepover. Richie’s focus settles on a faded bruise poking from the loose collar of Bev’s sweater and any casual humor drains out of her body into the resigned horror that had led her to him in the first place.

“Hey… Bev, it’s not really my place to pry or anything but… me and Eddie do have a guest bedroom if you need someplace to stay. I just… really don’t think you should go home.” He freezes, looking down at her with squinty eyes, eyebrows furrowed.

“You saw something in the deadlights didn’t you?” She untangles from his arm to look him in the eyes.

“Yeah, I did, but I think everyone else is worried too. You deserve better than that Bev.”

“I… I think I know that. Or I’m starting to at least.” He admits quietly, looking as though no one has told him he deserved better than being abused in the decades he hasn’t had his Losers, if Ben wasn’t tangled around him from where she was sleeping Richie thinks she might wrap him up in a hug and never let go.

She settles for dropping her head back on his shoulder.

“If you ever want to talk about the deadlights… I’m here.” She really would prefer to never think about the deadlights ever again, to just erase it from her memory and go back to when she was sure this was all real life, but she has a feeling that isn’t an option. 

“Thanks Bev.”

“And thank  _ you _ for the offer to stay with you guys, but I think I’m gonna be at Ben’s place while I work everything out.”

“ _ Oooh _ , already moving in together?” She does a weak little shimmy which makes him snort, “So... you and Ben are like a  _ thing _ now?”

“I don’t know if she wants to be a  _ thing _ really, like I’m not divorced yet and I don’t know if she actually wants to be with,” He lets out a shaky breath and Richie grabs his hand, “Be with someone like me.”

“Thats dumb, sorry Bev, but Ben has been in love with you since we were eleven, she fucking _wants this_. I can pretty much guarantee it.” Bev smiles shakily.

“Do you think we’re doing all of this… too fast?”

“Kinda, but I think you deserve it. You’re allowed to do things too fast after all this bullshit, make up for lost time.”

“Yeah… okay. You know… she wrote that poem about me.” Richie cackles before biting down on her sleeve when Ben shifts.

“Oh my god, _no_ _shit_ January Embers.”

“You knew?”

“ _ Everyone knew! _ ”

“Well no one told  _ me _ !” If Richie is remembering correctly they had honestly just assumed Bev was being a dick and pretending he didn’t know who wrote it because he wasn’t into Ben, and they never mentioned it because Ben had burst into tears and begged them not to one time when Eddie had been raring everyone up for a rampage against him for being insensitive.

They should have known better, Bev had never been that much of an asshole, but to be fair none of them had  _ really  _ ever met a boy their age who didn’t completely suck so it was new territory.

“I’m really happy for you and Eddie, you know.” Bev comments, tangling his fingers in the ends of Ben’s hair, sounding sad and hopeful at the same time.

“It’s weird, coming back to Derry after all this shit and feeling like we broke some rule by finding each other.”

“Well… fuck that, you messed with the clown’s plan before you could even remember him, thats badass. You’re… you’re really lucky.” He swallows shakily, pressing a hesitant kiss to the top of Ben’s hair and Richie feels her heart ache just a little bit, remembering echoes of Bev’s wife screaming and the crack of his body tumbling down stairs and how loudly the clinking of an empty beer can lining up next to a pile of empty bottles cuts through the silence of Ben’s apartment.

“Well… now it’s your turn to be lucky, we’ve got our Losers back. They didn’t call us the lucky seven for  _ nothing _ .” He rolls his eyes and she sticks out her tongue at him.

“You and Bill were the only two who consistently called us that.”

“ _ Um... _ bullshit, Mike did too, like  _ all the time _ .”

“She was humoring you.”

“It’s  _ true  _ though, isn’t it?” He huffs out a laugh, resting his head on top of hers.

“Yeah, yeah I guess it is.”

“Guess what is?” Richie startles for a second as Eddie’s arms wind around her shoulders from where she’s leaned against the back of the couch. She smells like Richie’s shampoo and her own body wash, an unexpectedly comforting combination of sickly sweet strawberry and eucalyptus mint. Richie looks up momentarily to press a kiss to the underside of her jaw.

“That we’re the lucky seven.” Eddie rolls her eyes, Richie can’t even see her face from where her head now is resting on top of her hair, and she can tell.

“Stan is still on the phone with her husband, don’t think she’s even fucking showered yet.” Eddie informs them, Richie flops her head back to look at her in all her nose crinkled, falsely annoyed glory.

“Really?”

“Shoulda heard her, all  _ I miss you babylove _ and  _ I love you _ it was very gross.”

“What happened to our Staniel! Another strong, bitchy woman destroyed by love!” Richie wails dramatically, she thinks she is using a british accent, but she’s not really sure. Bev elbows her hard and she yelps in mock offense.

“Shut up Ben’s  _ asleep, asshole _ ! And neither of you can say shit about Stan, both of you are disgustingly domestic.” He comments and Eddie snorts, poking Richie’s cheek.

“We are  _ not _ .” 

Richie mutters ‘we kinda are, baby’ over Beverly proclaiming in a loud whisper ‘you let her  _ sleep _ on your  _ lap  _ and then planned a  _ second wedding _ !’ 

“No.. no… look… Hey Richie! I hate you.”

“You suck.” She retaliates sleepily, giggling as she leans back against the couch and Eddie’s chest.

“Wow, proved me wrong.” Bev laughs, flipping them off and settling his chin on top of Ben’s head, she groans and blinks half awake.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty!” Richie crows happily and Eddie cuffs her lightly on the top of her head.

“ _ Fuck _ , is it morning?” She grumbles and he laughs lightly into her hair before shaking his head.

“I mean, technically it  _ is _ , it’s like two I think.” Eddie tells them, uselessly checking her wrist for the waterlogged watch she’d lost when swimming. Ben groans something that sounds like  _ s’late _ into Bev’s shoulder and he begins to stand, tugging her up despite her weak protests.

“Come on, you should probably sleep in an actual bed.

“ _ Noooo, _ ” He presses a kiss to her temple and she melts into his side, grumbling, “ _ Fine _ .”

“And  _ we’re  _ disgustingly domestic.” Eddie pouts loudly.

“Well we  _ are. _ ”

“Yeah but they got together like  _ six hours ago _ .”

“They’re heterosexual, Eddie, don’t be mean to them.”

“I feel like I’m being bullied by my gay aunts.” Bev calls and Richie dissolves into giggles, “ _ Wait, what? _ Oh. Also Ben would like to inform you she is, in fact, bisexual so you’re wrong.”

“Is she?” Eddie mulls, sounding as surprised as Richie felt because Ben was maybe the straightest person she’d ever met.

“I don’t fucking know, she just said she was.”

“No  _ way _ .”

“ _ Bill! _ ” Ben all but yells, sleep slurred and frustrated, and everyone murmurs in sudden appreciative understanding. It seemed that no one had been immune to the good old Billie Denbrough Charm when they were eleven.

“Okay, understandable, and with  _ that _ ... Goodnight!” He half-bows with a flourish and Eddie flops next to Richie on the couch as she waves, a sudden drop in her stomach when they disappear from view, things feel safer with more of them there. Things feel more tangible. The creeping horror of this all feeling slightly false just seems to grow with each Loser that left to go to their own rooms.

“We should go to bed too.” Eddie murmurs into her shoulder, pressing a kiss where the collar of her shirt exposes skin, she nods, tilting her chin up to kiss her properly before dragging herself off the couch.

Eddie vetoes her plan to just flop into bed without getting ready. She had known she was going to, but it was an old, practiced argument they had every time they had a particularly long day and the familiarity of Eddie lecturing her on the importance of skin care and brushing her teeth made them both feel better.

It helped her feel more grounded, the little details and idiosyncrasies that she hadn’t seen in the deadlights that helped everything around her feel just a little more real. She hated the idea that all of this could be setting her up with a false sense of security just so it would hurt that much more when the rug was torn out from under her and she hits the ground and Eddie is above her and telling her she  _ thinks she killed it _ \- Eddie finishes washing her face and hits her lightly with the damp towel, she blinks back into focus.

They settle under the stiff, dusty sheets of the untouched bed in their new room, legs tangled together and Eddie cuddled against Richie’s chest. Eddie who is alive and whole and breathing, who promised her that this was real and she wants to believe her more than anything.

Both had a thousand things they wanted to say, questions and newfound fears and  _ I love you so much that I would have died for you in the cistern. _

Instead Eddie pressed a kiss to Richie’s throat and she pressed one to her hair and they fell asleep in silence.

_ When Richie opens her eyes she’s back in Neibolt _ .

**-**

Eddie has a nightmare, of course she does, she doesn’t think she’s going to have a fully peaceful sleep for the rest of her life after this. It’s one of those blurry nightmares, the kind that you wake up after having with an overwhelming feeling of unease curling in your gut but no clear memory of what actually happened in the dream. But the nightmare isn’t what wakes her up, what wakes her up is her wife’s broken sobs and hoarse cries of her name. She’s laying stock still, which is so puzzlingly out of character for Richie, who tosses and turns when she  _ isn’t _ having a nightmare that Eddie almost thinks, for one sleep-addled minute, that she's hallucinating her crying and goes back to sleep. But Richie  _ screams  _ and lurches slightly, sobs shaking the shitty motel mattress so hard it squeaks.

“ _ NO! Eddie, PLEASE! _ ” 

Richie had voiced a character in an animated movie four years ago, and she had to practice the scene where they woke themselves up screaming over and over again in their living room while Eddie cackled and mocked her, just so she could do a line delivery that wasn’t overwhelmingly sarcastic or amused. Waking up from a nightmare screaming had been a running gag in the Kaspbrak-Tozier household ever since. They both agreed it was stupid, no one woke up from nightmares that way in  _ real life _ and it just  _ looked silly. _

But this  _ was _ real life and Eddie doesn’t find anything funny about this at all.

She can feel her heart shatter painfully in her chest, the shards exploding like a supernova, climbing up her throat and spearing through her stomach. She can’t help the horrifying feeling that she is just watching while her wife is unconscious and weeping and  _ breaking _ .

“Richie,  _ baby _ , wake  _ up! _ ” Absently she remembers something about not waking someone up from a nightmare (or maybe that’s sleepwalking?) but she really doesn’t fucking care as she straddles over her wife’s spasming legs and shakes her shoulders.

She tries to focus on Richie’s movement, the bedding twisted around her legs, the stale smell of dust that permeates the whole inn, anything that reminds her that physically, at least, they’re both okay even if this is far too close to their position in the cistern for comfort.

“ _Richie!_ _Wake the fuck up!_ ”

And she does, it's unceremonious, no dramatic, chest rattling gasp like there had been out of the deadlights, she didn’t launch up or puke or do anything that it seems fitting for the horror of what Eddie just witnessed.

Instead she blinks awake, eyes instantly welling with heartbreakingly silent tears, horrified but vacant, like she’s resigned herself to something horrible.

“ _ I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I want to save you but I can't. I'm sorry _ .” Eddie can’t even begin to understand what that means, but it hurts, Richie sounding so broken and scared. She scrambles off of her, tugging her upright and into her arms, she lets out a confused whimper into her shoulder.

“I’m here baby, I’m here, you’re okay.” She lets out a stuttering breath, whole body beginning to shake in her hold, the resigned stillness quivering into the expected melt down. Eddie isn’t sure if that’s any better.

“But I’m  _ not! It’s never gonna end! _ ” She takes her face in her hands, peppering light kisses to her damp cheeks.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m never gonna wake up, I want this to be real but it’s  _ not _ .” 

The realization that she thinks she’s still stuck in the deadlights hits Eddie like a fucking truck. It shouldn’t be quite so surprising, she’d been so uncertain in the sewer and she’d been acting strange all night but Eddie had just written it off as a result of the insane circumstances of the past few days.

But she still thinks she’s floating and Eddie suddenly realizes with stomach lurching discomfort that she has no clue how to ground her. 

But this is  _ Richie _ , helping Richie is as natural as breathing, she knows what to do, how to rub her upper back and the exact angle to tuck Richie’s head under her chin and to press as many kisses as she can to her hair. She can help Richie, she knows how to do that. 

Eddie is the best person on the planet at comforting Richie. The thought comes unbidden and it’s true; a small, earnest part of her  _ knows  _ that it is true on a fully objective level, but it sounds too much like what her mother would say. It  _ is _ something her mother  _ had actually said _ . She uncurls her arms from Richie’s shaking body and wraps them tightly around herself, she can’t be her mother, she  _ isn’t _ . Richie lets out a sob and guilt embeds itself into her sternum. 

She presses a kiss to her forehead, wrapping their shaky hands together, it’s not even close to perfect but it’s all she’s got.

“It  _ is _ real.”

“ _ You can’t know that _ !” 

“Oh  _ Richie _ .” Swallowing back her hesitation, she pulls her back into her arms, trying not to wince as Richie digs her fingers against the center of her chest, breath coming out short and choppy. 

She feels as though she is the worst wife in the entire world, she doesn’t know how the fuck she is supposed to handle this, how she’s supposed to convince Richie that she’s here and they’re both okay. So she just holds her, murmuring uselessly into her hair that she’s awake, listing the things around them, what she can touch and smell and feel like this is a normal panic attack even if it is anything but. 

After what feels like hours, Richie disconnects her hands from her chest and flops suddenly into her hold, like the tense strings that had been keeping her rigidly upright had been cut and she couldn’t hold herself up anymore.

She lets Eddie shift so they’re both half lying down, tilting her head up to look at her even though Eddie knows she’s practically blind without her glasses, the residual tears still clinging to the corners of her eyes and dim room lighting probably isn’t helping. 

She smiles at her, it's probably more for Eddie’s benefit than her own and it’s wavering, a weak imitation of what Richie Kaspbrak-Tozier’s smile is supposed to be. But it’s a start.

“There you are.” Richie flinches when she rubs her thumb over the cheek she’s cupping but grabs her hand and keeps it where it is when she tries to pull away, leaning into the touch, “Are you alright?”

It’s a stupid question, so fucking stupid,  _ of course she isn’t alright _ .

“I feel like… I feel like I’m losing my mind.” Eddie didn’t think her heart could break more but Richie had somehow found a way to shatter the broken pieces even more.

“I’m here. I’ve got you and I’m here and I love you.”

“Okay.” She curls against her chest, feeling far smaller in Eddie’s arms then she should but her shaking subsides slowly, so painfully slowly that it shatters more and more of Eddie’s chest cavity because she’s  _ hurting and Eddie can’t help her _ .

“This is real.”

“ _ Okay _ .”

It’s not okay and they both know it. Richie is too quiet, too shaky, too small and Eddie is far too afraid of going too far.

“I love you.” Richie sniffles into her collar bone, she doesn’t say it back but she doesn’t have to. Eddie knows.

Neither fell back asleep, not that anyone could ever expect them to after that. Eddie watches the sunrise through the crack in between their curtains and hopes her wife finds the same comfort as her in their combined warmth and tight hold on eachother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, gently kissing all the losers on top of their head: These grown adults can fit so much goddamn trauma in them!  
> Also I really didn't NEED the scene where Ben says she's bi but it is a hill I will die on and you must deal with it.  
> (The turtle god said "the losers don't need to deal with disposing of a body" and also "The Author Doesn't Need To Deal With Writing How The Fuck The Losers Dispose Of A Body")


	22. The Return to Normalcy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Losers get to go home now. Some of them are happier about it than others.  
> (TW! Allusions to abuse and mentions of Stan's attempt with some misguided self hatred on her account)

“I really am sorry for keeping you up, Eds.” Richie mumbles, half dressed and sprawled across their bed, glaring at the pair of jeans Eddie had tossed at her like the effort to put them on is personally offending her.

“Richie, honey, I love you so much but if you apologize one more fucking time I’m  _ going  _ to make you walk to the airport.” It’s not that she’s mad at Richie,  _ god _ , of course she isn’t mad at Richie for having a fucking nightmare. It’s just that she’s easily frustrated on a good day and it only gets worse when she’s tired, it’s an unfortunate reality but it’s how she’s always worked and Richie has been on the receiving end of it long enough to know that. 

Guilt courses through her regardless, she shouldn’t have snapped, not after all the shit that went down last night; none of that was her wife’s fault and she really doesn’t want to insinuate anything of the sort.  When she goes to backpedal she finds that Richie doesn’t look upset, though, she’s smirking up at her, soft eyes brimming with enough love that Eddie thinks it might have killed her if she was still seventeen, just the very concept of Richie Tozier staring at her like that. 

“You’re an asshole.” The way she breathes it out, achingly relieved and fond, makes Eddie’s heart flip in an anxious way she’s come to recognize over the years (and managed to fine tune startlingly in 24 hours) is Richie-Specific alarm. She can’t for the life of her place how her being a shithead was fucking  _ comforting  _ but when something in her yearns to press, communication is key and all that, she thinks about the hours it took for Richie to stop shaking in her arms last night and decides selfishly to let it lie. 

“Just put on your stupid pants.” She leans over the bed to kiss her, swerving a second before reaching her lips to peck her cheek, “And brush your teeth.” Richie looks terribly put out but her relieved little smile doesn’t fade.

“Technically, we didn’t  _ really  _ sleep so do I actually  _ need _ to brush my teeth?” 

“Yes! You  _ know _ that’s not how that works!” In the back of her head she knows this sudden comfortable banter doesn’t mean anything, that it doesn’t erase what happened last night and they  _ need _ to deal with that, but right now she’s content to cling onto just a shred of normalcy and pretend everything is alright.

“ _Hey lovebirds, breakfast in ten!_ _Get down here!_ ” 

“Go fuck yourself Uris!” Eddie snaps without thinking and Richie flops back with a bemused grin.

“Wow, you are  _ tired _ .”

“No shit.” She crawls on the bed to kiss her forehead, half to reassure her that she doesn’t blame her again and half to satiate the urge to kiss her wife properly (it doesn’t matter that she looks fucking cute and this whole situation is fucked enough to justify it, if she bends once to their ‘no morning breath’ kisses rule she’ll never hear the end of it). Richie offers her another half smile before heaving herself up to get ready.  Eddie pointedly ignores how Richie is wearing her sweatshirt, it’d be hypocritical to tease her for it considering she exclusively wore Richie’s clothing to bed last night and was currently sporting pair of her soft stupid-patterned socks for no reason other than the fact that they were her wife’s. 

She goes to grab her hand once they get out of their room but hesitates, letting it flop down and hit off her hip. Richie doesn’t need to her fucking hold her hand to go down some stairs, she can do that herself. Eddie doesn’t need to fucking  _ coddle her _ becuase she’s worried about her and wants to be close- Richie wraps her fingers around Eddie’s and looks at her strangely for just a moment before dragging her down to the lobby.

“Mike and B-Ben are picking up breakf-fast.” Bill offers grumpily from the rim of her coffee cup when they eventually get downstairs, she’s still in her pajamas and it looks as though she has no intention of getting dressed any time soon.

“Apparently when you run off a movie set and disappear off the face of the Earth for twenty four hours you need to be up all night making phone calls.” Bev informs them in a too loud whisper and Bill flips him off, arcing it over the room so it also lands on Stan, who’s laughing at her while she stirs a cup of tea as loudly as possible. Well, to be fair to Stan, she was probably stirring at a normal volume, but Eddie was irritable and several seconds away from ripping the spoon out of her hands and breaking it in half.

Luckily for Stan’s spoon, a far too chipper Ben and Mike appear waving bags of food and her attention is diverted, for now.

Eating with hole in her cheek is weird, even though it wasn’t her first meal since being stabbed she really didn’t think it was something you could just get used to. The food scrapes against the cut uncomfortably and the grease stings the lacerated skin. Even though it's patched she can’t help but worry that something is going to slip through the hole, which she knows is ridiculous, she’s not jabbing her fork near her mangled left cheek and she’s not planning to in the near future, but the fear is still there. 

It’s bizarre, she’s had so many intense things to worry about these past couple of days and now that it’s over it’s almost as if thousands of tiny, irrational worries are rushing to fill the vacant space. There is too much thrumming under her skin, but this time she knows she’s being ridiculous so it just leaves her on edge and irritable.

She can’t drink hot coffee, which fucking sucks, it  _ burns _ when it enters her mouth it but damn if she isn’t going to  _ try _ . She’s three painful, grimaced sips in when Stan notices and forcefully tugs it out of her hands, putting it on the low table at her knees before resettling into her seat, hands extended like she’s setting a challenge, daring Eddie to grab it. She doesn’t, just spends the next few minutes sleepily glaring at the cardboard to go cup, she’s so tired and it’s just  _ sitting there. _ It’s mocking her. 

“You okay Eddie?” Mike asks, amused, and she flips her off despite really having no true reason to. They seem to think it’s funny, that she thinks a cup of coffee is mocking her, because they are all terrible people, her wife very much included. Though, Richie’s true crimes are mainly the fact that she isn’t cuddling with Eddie moreso than the coffee thing. She’s sitting on Bev’s lap, like a traitor.

She’d actually been couch hopping the whole breakfast, stealing their food and hugging them and harassing them; it makes Eddie relax a little. She’s acting normal and annoying and Richie-like and after last night that's all Eddie really wants. 

Well, it makes her relax until she realizes that Richie’s checking their pulses when she grabs their wrists to get to their food, counting their heart beats in her head when she hugs them, making sure the other Losers are alive as she ruffles their hair.  Then she just feels like crying and she isn’t nearly rested enough to be sure she can fully hold the tears back.

“Did you guys even  _ sleep, _ Eddie you look like you're dying.” 

“Fuck off.” 

“Answer the question and I will.” Stan leans forward on her knees, looking far too invested in her answer. Eddie can’t help but glance at Richie who looks momentarily like she’s swallowed a rock. There has got to be an excuse that isn’t ‘no because Richie had a mental breakdown’, which she is  _ sure  _ isn’t something Richie is up to share, but she can’t think of one and her silence is definitely more telling than anything she could have come up with.

“Well what were we supposed to do, you know what they say about near death experiences.” Richie swoops in quickly, eyebrows wiggling suggestively at Stan who makes a gagging noise instead of asking for clairfication. 

“What...what  _ do  _ they say Richie?” Bev asks, sounding incredibly invested as he props his chin on her shoulder.

“Well, you know the adrenaline just-”

“Beep beep!” They didn’t do anything last night, Eddie knows this, but their friends don’t and Richie is really putting on a show to look like a woman who got laid last night which is not the narattive Eddie really wants to spread right now.

“What, Eds, you don’t want our friends to know the intimate details of our-”

“ _ BEEP FUCKING BEEP!” _

“God, did you really fuck in the  _ Townhouse Inn? _ ” Ben sounds like she can’t decide whether or not she should be amused or horrified.

“No we fucking  _ didn’t!” _

“You’ll never know.” Eddie is going to kill her wife. She’s going to murder her. 

Despite her frustration she can’t help but fall victim to the laughter that falls over the group, it’s slow at first, building up until it’s brightly warm and all encompassing, she thinks all of Derry can probably hear them. It wasn’t even all that funny, the idea of Richie and Eddie’s possible late night activities, but it was as though they were feeding off each other, grasping for the closest Loser to steady themselves only to fail miserably as the laughter grew until their sides split and their cheeks burned, clinging to one another in a desprete attempt to calm themselves. 

But the laughter fades, slowly but surely, and then all together goes away until they are left to silently stare at the inevitable. Eddie hadn’t really considered what was going to happen after they won, when they were allowed to go home.

Being together is incredible but it’s not sustainable, Bill’s flight is in an hour, Bev and Ben depart twenty minutes after that, by two pm they’ll all be on their separate ways and there is something terrifying about it. Even with the clown gone life has always seemed safer when they're together and the idea of losing each other again so soon after getting reunited suddenly hangs low and heavy over the room.

“I love you guys.” Mike cuts through the silence. It isn’t the first time one of them has vocalized it, they said it constantly as children, but Eddie thinks this might be the first time they all really, truly understand what it means.

“We love you too, Mikey.” Bill confirms, she’s always been good at speaking for all of them, always knew what everyone was thinking when it really mattered.

All of this had to end, they'd have to go home, but distance could be just as temporary as closeness. Just becuase they had to say goodbye didn’t mean they had to wait another twenty seven years to say hello again. They weren’t going to forget this time.

**-**

Bill is not looking forward to this. 

She sleeps on the plane ride back to London but it’s not enough to make up for the zero hours she got last night. It’s not even good sleep, which she thinks is sort of bullshit, she jolts awake far too often from nightmares or visions of Georgie just out of her sightline. 

All she can do is pray is that the stuffy old woman seated next to her doesn’t recognize her, not that she really looks like a horror fan, because she’s sure her erratic sleep and shaky hands will just feed into the rumors about her ‘finally snapping’ or getting addicted to coke that everyone she talked to on the phone last night had asked about. 

Andrew hadn’t called. She isn’t sure how she feels about it.

She contacts some people at the studio to confirm she will be there today (with ample explanation for her absence she has not even begun to make up, maybe she should text Bev, he’d always been a good liar). She sits in an airport coffee shop for an hour, staring into her order that Andrew always teases is too pale from all the things she adds to even count as actual coffee, and tries not to cry.

She doesn’t even know  _ why _ she wants to cry, everything just seems sort of aimless, like she’s questioning things she never thought to question before.

She’s always been the kind of person who does one big activity and then wants to be done, it’s why she always gets the bulk of her writing done in multi-hour long binge sessions and then passes out for two days. She, and her body, seem to agree on that fact that returning to her hometown, regaining a lifetime of memories, and killing an intergalactic clown who ate your brother is enough to constitute a crash session; her career, however, thinks otherwise. She’s just so fucking tired.

The second she gets back to set Andrew is on top of her, fussing and flashing smiles to the paparazzi that had been waiting, she wonders if it’s all always felt quite so fake.

“Where on  _ Earth  _ have you been?” 

“I… I’ll explain in front of everyone, alr-r-r-”

“Alright?” He finishes, looking at her strangely, though she supposes that’s fair even if it makes her stomach lurch unpleasantly, she hadn’t had a stutter when she left. It’s been worse all day, lack of sleep and anxiousness about her job keeping words lodged in her throat when she didn’t want them to be. 

The only difference between her stuttering at breakfast and her stuttering now was the fact that the Losers hadn’t finished her sentences.

She goes with the excuse Bev and Ben had helped her fine tune as she addresses the whole cast and crew (and cameras, so many fucking cameras). She had thought her original idea was pretty solid, to say it was some wild social experiment for her next book and leave it at the writing process, but they had been right, that it would probably open some new but just as intense questioning of her sanity. 

According to Ben, for the lie to work it had to be small because she was a ‘terrible liar’ with ‘an even worse poker face’. Bill, personally, thought that was bullshit but when the issue was brought to the new Loser’s group chat everyone seemed to agree, to her surprise, about her apparent inability to do anything more than  _ maybe _ fib.

So she rambles something about running out becuase she got a particularly devastating call from an old friend and needing to go check that she was safe, it was barely a lie and while no one seems happy about it and she is sure things will be rocky for a bit, they buy it. One particularly sweet, baby faced intern even pulls her aside and tells her he hopes her friend is okay.

Andrew stops in the middle of a scene and makes some big dramatic deal about not being in  _ the right headspace _ to film which gets them permission to go home for the day. It also makes Bill feel fucking terrible. It’s all her fault, she should have told him where she was going before running out, spent the night on the phone with him like Stan did with her husband, but she didn’t and now he couldn’t work because he’d been so worried.

Really she just feels bad until they get home. He entirely ignores her attempts to get him to sit down so she can explain, the best she can without sounding insane, why she had disappeared, that make her emotions shift into something a little less discernible. 

“Bill, darling, I don’t really care, you’re an adult and you can do what you want but try not to cause a scandal next time?” He says, slightly teasing even though he sounds thoroughly exhausted with her. He kisses the top of her head and aimlessly mentions something about going upstairs to rest. She doesn’t follow him but he definitly didn’t expect her to. 

This is sort of how they’ve always worked, relatively uninvolved with the other’s business unless they need to be, it was sort of like having a roommate or a business partner you kiss, and they were both okay with it. Well, Bill  _ was _ okay with it, before the events of the past two days. There isn’t anything objectively wrong with how they do things, but now Bill really isn’t sure it’s what she wants. 

She’ll talk to Andrew about it later… probably. She despretly does not want to, serious conversations have never been their forte as a couple; she’s not good at advice and he’s not easy to talk to, not if you actually want to feel like you're being listened to so they solve most of their problems independently, it’s just easier. 

She wants to call Mike. She doesn’t really have a reason to, she doesn’t even know why Mike is the name that pops in her head above any of the other Losers, but Mike has always made her feel heard. She doesn’t call her.

She tweets out an excuse for her sudden absence, something that definitely sounds more cryptic than she means to and her PR person will hate, not that she is really thinking long term right now. She ignores the half finished book staring at her from her files and the hundreds of emails she needs to answer and the missed calls she didn’t get to last night. 

Instead she watches one of Richie’s Netflix specials. It’s funnier than expected, even though that shouldn’t be suprising, Richie’s always been funny, but she sort of feels like she’s seen her stand up before and not liked it. 

It’s bizarre, everytime she mentions her wife, to know she’s talking about Eddie. She can’t wrap her mind around the two of them living this whole life together separate from the other Losers, one where they fought over proposals because they both planned them within days of each other, a life where Eddie punched a homophobe who grabbed Richie’s ass and Richie pretended to like hot chocolate made with unsweetened cocoa powder for two years because it was Eddie’s favorite and she didn’t want her to feel bad, a life where Richie Tozier was Richie Kaspbrak-Tozier and she went off script during  _ the filming of her  _ _ Netflix special  _ to wax poetic about Eddie Kaspbrak-Tozier’s ass. 

Halfway through the special Andrew comes downstairs, he sits in the chair across the room and makes notes in his script, occasionally commenting on a joke or huffing out a laugh.

He has a whole teapot on the side table next to him that he periodically refills his cup from, he doesn’t offer Bill any. She knows it’s not to be malicious, she’s almost certain he is unaware of what he’s doing. Any other time it wouldn’t have bothered her, except Richie is on screen and all Bill can think about is the fact that she would have definitely shared with her wife, hell, she would have brought Eddie her own teacup. 

“D-do you want me to order t-take out for dinner?” She tries slowly, hoping to garner any sort of reaction, he doesn’t even look up from his script.

“Sure, love.” There’s an awkward silence after that; Andrew printing something neatly in the margins of the page he is on, Bill waiting, hoping, he’ll give her any more input than ‘sure’, and Richie cutting through the quiet with a terrible impression of some cartoon character that really just sounds like an excellent impression of a woman showing Bill that her marriage might be slightly more unfulfilling than she’d realized.

She wants to call Mike.

She calls and orders dinner instead.

**-**

Ben’s apartment building was really fucking nice. It’s right smack dab in the middle of Manhattan with beautiful big windows lining the side of it and a lovely door man named Mick who eyed Bev with interest and said “Missed having you around here Miss Benjamina!” far more earnestly than expected. 

“I’ve told him it’s just Ben but he refuses to believe me.” Ben informs him once they’re in the elevator and Bev snorts sympathetically. That had been the best low hanging fruit for bullies back when they were kids, the three Bs in the Losers club with their wrong gendered real names, Ben, Beverly, and Billie. 

She twists the handle of her suitcase awkwardly, watching the numbers above the door go up and pointedly avoiding eye contact, swallowing hard.

“Uh… look, I don’t really think I… cleaned that well before I left like a month ago. Just so you’re aware, it’ll probably be kind of… gross?” He studies her for a minute, trying to figure out how to word that he really is in no position to care about how  _ clean _ the apartment is that she’s letting his homeless, sort of divorced, traumatized ass stay in for free. She apparently takes his silence for judgement and her cheeks flush pink.

“I’m not always a really messy person, I mean… I can clean up after myself and-”

“Don’t worry about it, Ben, I don’t care, really!” She ducks her head and he focuses his attention on his duffle bag strap. 

This is unexplored territory, the awkwardness, all the women he’s dated, especially his wife have been sure of what they wanted and not shy about telling Bev how he was going to give it to them. There were awkward moments, sure, but they were more Bev not knowing what to do and them trying to hide their mounting anger. Tensely awkward. 

This awkwardness was new; soft, exploratory, and nervous. Bev wasn’t afraid of it, just unsure, and he didn’t quite know how to handle that.

Well, he  _ was _ afraid, but he was more afraid of fucking everything up and not of Ben herself. He doesn’t think he could be scared of Ben, which is a new feeling and he’s just clinging to the hope that it’s sustainable, he hadn’t really been scared of Tanya at first either. But Ben is different, always has been.

The doors ding open, Ben offers him a wobbly smile before stepping out and it makes his chest feel funny. She’s been doing that since he saw her in Derry (since he saw her in the airport coffee shop really, if he thought about it, even if he hadn’t remembered her yet).

He tries to remember if she had always had this ability to make him feel fuzzy warm and confused, but an exciting confusion, like someone has placed a wrapped up present on his lap and he gets to guess at what's inside until he learns how to open it. He thinks she had, even when they were kids. He just hadn’t realized back then what her bright eyes and sincere smile had been doing to him.

Ben’s apartment is soft colors with a big open floor plan he didn’t even know existed in New York City apartments. It’s covered in useless little knick knacks he can just picture her buying because they made her happy, there’s a big mug painted with constellations sitting on the windowsill with an old, dried out tea bag still stuck inside of it, a very dead plant hangs off a shelf from one of the colorful, macrame holder he thinks he remembers her mother hand making all the time, and there are books, piles of books, like the whole place is it’s own little library; it’s all very Ben. 

But he can’t ignore the fact that the whole place reeks of stale beer.

He can’t ignore the bottles scattered on the coffee table and next to the garbage cans like she just couldn’t be bothered to actually throw them out.

He can’t ignore how lonely the whole place seems, there are no pictures on the walls, the books are stacked like barriers, protective and isolating, the couch is small, there aren’t any extra chairs, the whole place is set up like she’s never had a guest before and doesn’t plan to in the future. 

_That_ doesn’t feel very Ben, this isolated, drunken disaster. Ben had never been broken like Bev or as fucked up as the other Losers, not _really_. She’d always been bullied of course, and she had her fair share of family issues and insecurities but she’d always been the one the Losers could look at and think _well at least Ben is_ _okay._

He’s starting to wonder if she’d just been very good at hiding when she wasn’t.

He realizes he’s been staring for just a second too long when Ben, whole face scarlet, launches into another round of absent minded apologies and rushes to make space on the sofa. She swats him away when he tries to help and he reluctantly sinks into the newly uncovered cushion. 

He feels like he should be  _ helping _ . She’s literally giving up her home for him and now she’s stressed about speed cleaning it and he feels so fucking guilty. The words stick in his throat when he tries to offer to help again or tell her it’s okay. Ben wouldn’t get angry,  _ he knows that _ , but he doesn’t want to push. Pushing rarely works in his favor.

“Hey, why were you in the same airport as me before? New York and Chicago aren’t exactly right next door.” Apparently, his psyche thinks that prying is  _ better _ .

“Oh, um, work stuff. I dropped the project though, after all of this. Made everything easier just to be back here.” The guilt is back, she’s too nice, way too fucking nice, she lost  _ business  _ becuase of him.

“You.. you didn’t have to do that.” He chokes out, throat tight and hands twisted in the strap of his bag. Ben wasn’t upset with him but she fucking  _ should be and she would be eventually _ . She clearly notices his stupid breakdown and grabs his hand, hesitating when he flinches.

“Hey, hey, it’s  _ fine, _ Bev. It wasn’t even anything special, just a shitty office building, they didn’t even listen to any of my ideas anyway.” He doesn’t like the way she says that last bit, lined with resigned frustration, far too used to people ignoring her contributions. He latches onto the frustration, letting it overwhelm his worry. She smiles placatingly, squeezing his hand after his shoulders untense before flopping next to him. 

“I… know you said it was fine but I can sleep on the couch if you don’t want to share the bed, really it’s totally cool.” He offers, mainly just to break the silence that had fallen over them like a blanket, it hadn’t been this hard to talk to her back in Derry but this is the real world and suddenly everything seems a million times more complicated. 

If he’s being completely honest sleeping on the couch literally always fucks up his back, he’s done it enough times to know the feeling intimately, but this all still feels like they’re moving absurdly fast and he really doesn’t want to pressure Ben into something she’s not comfortable with.

“ _ Bev _ ,” Ben sighs out long sufferingly, but she drops her head on his shoulder and sort of nuzzles her temple against it so he doesn’t think she is actually annoyed, “I promise it’s fine! Your acting like we need to fuck or something becuase we’re sharing a bed. In which case, buy me dinner first.” He chokes on his unexpected laughter and Ben offers him a self-satisfied looking smirk, only hindered by how much she’s blushing (but his cheeks feel hot, so she’s definitely not the only one).

“I can buy you dinner anyway.” 

“Well then, we don’t have a problem do we?”

Their kiss in Derry had felt like a beginning, one big grand movie moment underwater, but this one is different. It feels more realistic and he is more than okay with that. 

This kiss is something he can get used to. This is the kind of kiss you have right before the other goes to work, coffee stained and soured with morning breath. This is the kind of kiss someone would press to your cheek absently, no obligation, just as a reminder that they love you. This is the kind of kiss that is a thank you, a please, a silent, mundane conversation.

Bev doesn’t think he’s ever kissed someone and known so intimately that it was the beginning of a life together, perfectly flawed and painfully promising.

So he kisses her again.

**-**

Stan hasn’t let go of Pat since she got off the plane and saw him standing there with his stupid, homemade, printer paper sign and a hopeful little smile, to be fair though, he hadn’t shown any indication of wanting to release her either.

“Hey darling, hey, you’re okay, I got you.” He murmurs into her hair when she starts to cry, hands shaking where they’ve curled around the back of his sweater like a lifeline. 

She’d talked to him on the phone in her room last night for hours, fell asleep with the plastic receiver tucked in her hand against her cheek and woke up with a thick, red indent in her cheek from it. Pat hadn’t hung up, she could hear him snoring from the other end of the line. 

But last night she hadn’t talked about any of the bad stuff, they hadn’t focused on why Stan had really done what she’d done before leaving him to go to Maine. Now it’s all spilling out and she can’t fucking handle it, people are definitly staring, they’re still in the goddamn airport and she’s having a breakdown. She can’t help it, she’s home, she’s okay,  _ he’s here and she loves him so fucking much. _

Pat press a kiss to the crown of her head and ushers her carefully outside and across the parking lot, tugging her in the back seat instead of the passanger side.

“Figured you’d want to calm down first.” He tucks her carefully under her chin, he’s too good, she has no goddamn clue what she did to deserve him.

“ _ I love you, I’m so sorry.” _ She wheezes into the crook of his neck and he lets out a pained noise, bringing his arms around her, tight and reassuring.

“Baby, you’re okay, it’s okay! You didn’t do anything wrong!” But she did. She can’t stop seeing the twisted version of Pat tangled in the fridge, wrists slit and spider legs forcing their way through his skin, he’d said it was her fault. It fucking was, his likeness never should have been brought up in all that bullshit, the clown shouldn't have even known his name but It did becuase Stan dragged him into the fight without meaning to. She’d made him see her like that. What she had seen had been terrifying but it wasn’t  _ real. _ She had made him hold a towel to her arm and call an ambulance and worry about whether or not she was going to make it. 

If she had succeeded Eddie would be dead. The leg she pushed her away from would have gone right through her and she would have died and Richie would be alone, if Richie even woke up from the deadlights without Eddie to kiss her awake. If she had succeeded there was no garuntee they would have won, that they would have all made it out of there, one of her friends could have died all becuase she was too selfish and scared to come to Derry right away. Pat would have been alone. She would have left him alone.

“You’re here baby, I’m so proud of you. I’m  _ so _ proud of you.”

But he had saved her, he’s here now, he’s not angry. He just keeps murmering reassurances into her hair, trying to calm her down and slowly it’s working, not on a deep level, she’s not delluded enough to think it’s going to solve anything long term, but it doesn’t need to right now.

Crying yourself out into your husband’s sweater while he told you everything was okay had a certain level of healing properties she thought were severly underrated.

“I’m sorry I cried on your shirt.” She chokes after everything calms down, he lets out a wet laugh.

“Thats what I’m here for.” She drags her face out of his shoulder, bringing a thumb up to wipe at the dampness that had spilled under his eyes.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too, ready to go home?”

“ _ Please. _ ” He snorts, leaning down to catch her in a proper kiss, “You will not belive how uncomfortable Derry motel beds are.”

“I think I have a pretty good idea, apparently hotels next to airports get enough bussiness they don’t really need to be nice.” She stared at him wide eyed before hitting his arm, not hard enough to really hurt but he still screws up his face, pouting as he rubs at the spot she’d impacted, “ _ Ow,  _ what was that for?”

“Why’d you stay in a hotel? You didn’t need to do that!”

“I wanted to wait for you to come home.” It’s like this bastard is trying to make her cry.

“I love you but you’re an idiot.” She tries to sound frustrated but the smile the spreads across her face as she wraps him into another hug probably doesn’t help her case.

“Let me be romantic, Samantha.”

“No! You are absolutley ridiculous.” 

Two people have never been so reluctant to climb out of the cramped backseat of a 2010 Honda Civic after sleeping in a hotel for two days and sitting on a plane for four hours. It’s weird, they’ve never been the most touchy-feely couple, but right now it feels like they can’t go three minutes without holding hands over the cupholders. She doesn’t even let go to wipe her face off with the flimsy napkins Pat keeps in his glove compartment, just drags his hand with hers up to her wet cheeks.

She’s just glad the need to be close is mutual. 

“Oh! I gave my friend’s your number incase they need to call me, I hope you don’t mind.” She remembers, slightly regretting the descion now that she’s far enough away from her friends to really think about how annoying they can be. Hopefully they’ve restrained themselves, most of them are probably still flying anyway, but with them she’s not sure that will quite matter. His laughter after she says it isn’t all that promising.

“Mhm, is that why I was added to a group chat ‘for losers’ and then instructed that I couln’t read any of the chat and should just give you the phone becuase it was for ‘Stan’s Eyes Only’?”

“They are actually children.” But she loves them, she loves them so much.

“Want my phone so you can read through?”

“No.” She takes it anyway.

“Stan Urine-Blum is a fun nickname by the way.”

“You weren’t supposed to read it!” She gasps, and he cackles at her genuine offense. Her husband can never meet the Losers, she decides then and there, she’ll never get a moment of peace again if Richie Tozier and Patrick Blum are ever in a room together.

“Well,” He untangles their hands to condescendingly pat her head,  _ “you _ weren’t supposed to destroy your phone in a sewer.”

She supposes thats fair enough.

**-**

Mike had always liked the way the world smelled after it rained, fresh and clean and new. Petrichor. After Ben had told her the word when they were fifteen she’d worked it into so many of her sentences Eddie had needed to shove her to the floor of the clubhouse and sit directly on her chest until she swore to stop using it. It wasn’t her fault, it was just so perfect for the feeling that settled over the whole world after a storm.

Long story short: Derry, the new Derry after everything had gone down, reeked of petrichor. Fresh and clean and new. Well… as fresh and clean and new as a terrible town who hates you and has made your life miserable for forty years can feel. 

It’s not the change she had been expecting, if she’s being honest she had barely expected to be alive to experience it, but she’d been anticipating something more bold. Some sleepy, fairytale-esque town that had all of a sudden woken up with a bang, where the sun shines brighter shines brighter and the birds sing louder and the people do good for no reason other than the satisfactory feeling of being kind. 

It’s not that. 

It’s still sleepy, but not in a coma like it had been, some middle ground like when you just wake up and the world is still fuzzy around the edges, it’s more realistic. Less people shoot her dirty looks but they still ignore her, she sees more kids outside playing with their parents but both halves look confused at the sudden change of heart, the sun shines and the birds sing but they did that before, Mike just thinks she can appreciate it more. It’s not perfect but it’s better, something more comfortable. It’s a new start rather than a happy ending. Petrichor. 

She’s sure that's an overextended metaphor but Eddie Kaspbrak’s plane was scheduled to have landed in California an hour ago so she thinks she is safe from getting sat on and lectured about it. 

Derry gets to start over now, and she’s absolutely thrilled to know she won't be there to see it.

All the Losers had not so subtly left her their addresses (and what sort of seems like all the cash in their collective pockets, which she isn’t sure whether or not she should be offended by, she  _ has _ a job, but to be fair, she won’t in twenty four hours. When she texts the group chat about it Richie via Eddie’s phone somehow gets them all to refer to her as their collective sugar baby, and the mental image of Stanusing her husband’s phone to reluctantly claim title of sugar daddy is so amusing that she finds she can’t really complain too much about the whole situation). Despite their completely unsubtle hints that she should check out LA or New York City or Georgia she knew where she was going. Florida had, admittedly, lost some of it’s shine over the years but she had made a promise to eighteen year old Michelle Hanlon, crying in her bedroom and waiting for phone calls she knew weren’t going to come, and she’dbe damned if she was gooing to break it now after putting her through hell. 

That’s not to say Bill’s earnest offer of a room in her London flat wasn’t tempting. Well, it was until she was reminded that it was actually Andrew Phillips London flat and Bill Denbrough was technically Bill Phillips now. She’s a forty year old woman who still hadn’t gotten over her middle school crush and that is almost mortifying enough to write London off her travel plans entirely. She has no fucking reason to dislke Andrew Phillips, he’s a good actor, has solid press all around (unlike Beverly’s wife who even the shallowest of deep dives unearths so much shit it makes Mike sick), but she hates him. 

She’s always been easily jealous, something about being the only person of color in even the tightest knit of friend groups, especially one that didn’t go to school with the others makes you feel a little replaceable and incredibly defensive in your position in the group as a result. In her defense it came in handy sometimes, it made her good at reading people's least desirable traits as she politely froze them out; Richie’s short lived boyfriend from sophomore year who turned out to be a complete dick, Ben’s cousin who was bullying her and using her as a scapegoat so he could sneak out, Eddie’s ‘church friends’ who her mom approved of because they were fucking terrible people, all of them had seemed nice enough at first and Andrew Phillips rubbed her the wrong way just as they had. 

It wasn’t just because she was jealous of him, that may have been where it started, it’s almost always where it started, but she’d searched far enough into the recesses of the internet to find covered up interviews where people called him difficult to work with and stuck up, that combined with Bill’s astounding lack of enthusiasm about her husband of five years really just made Mike feel the tiniest bit vindicated (and also the tiniest bit like a fucking crazy person).

Her tiny apartment feels emptier now that the Losers have gone, she’s gotten used to loneliness but it’s almost unbearably quiet, like she’d somehow become unaccustomed to her isolation after two days of seeing her friends. She tries to pack a suitcase and stops halfway through, staring aimlessly at the pair of pajama pants she’s trying poorly to fold. Everything hits her at once, she’d thought that had happened at the quarry yesterday but evidently she still had a lot stored up.

This is it. Her whole life fits into a single suitcase, forty years condensed into some shirts and books and a toiletries bag she’d bought at Keene’s pharmacy when she was twelve for her first ever sleepover and hadn’t needed to replace. 

It should be exciting or scary or something, maybe it’s both, she doesn’t really know, not yet, but she doesn’t think she’s supposed to. She gets out of here tomorrow, she can figure everything out then. 

If she was still fifteen she probably would have scribbled Florida or Bust on top of her suitcase, would have been confident this was the start of her grand adventure, she’d get out of Derry and everything would be perfect, she’d probably be so excited she wouldn’t sleep until the plane had landed and she’d seen the ocean. But she’s not fifteen, so she gives up on folding, balling up her pajama pants and tossing them on top of the pile and goes to bed, it’s early and she still has a lot to do but she’s tired. She’s so fucking tired. 

She’s going to sleep now, and maybe when she wakes up things will make sense. If they don’t, well, then she’ll figure it out at some point, she just needs to get out of Derry first.

**-**

Eddie sleeps the whole plane ride home. She pretty much always slept on airplanes, it’s a habit that she’d managed to pick up at some point during their relationship. She claimed it was easier than focusing on all the things that could go wrong, which was why the flight to Derry had been so disconcerting, with her awake and muttering about how gross airplanes were statistically and whether or not Richie knew how often snakes hid in cargo bins. But she’s asleep now, one of her unintentional idiosyncrasies that make the weight pressing against Richie’s ribcage lighten ever so slightly. 

She used to complain about it, how incredibly  _ boring _ flying was when all she could do was  _ stare longingly at the beautiful stranger next to her _ like a creep (Eddie usually elbowed her at that point and informed her that it isn’t creepy when the two of you have matching wedding rings and are wearing socks that came out of the same package). She never actually minded, it made things significantly duller but she liked getting to watch Eddie sleep for once instead of the other way around, liked the way her tense lines from the stress of the airport smoothed out. She’d still complain about it for the same reason Eddie complained about her predicting the ending of every crime show they ever watched, even though she clearly didn’t really mind. It was something they clung to, comfortable bickering that allowed them to pretend they weren’t obnoxiously codependent. 

That being said, Richie isn’t sure she could or would ever complain about Eddie’s sleep patterns again. She can barely comprehend how she had done it in the first place, not when Eddie’s cheek pressed against her shoulder and hand wrapped loosely around her own was so incredibly tangible and grounding despite being several miles above the actual ground.

She’d never gotten to a point in the Deadlights where she flew home alone or flew home with Eddie right next to her only to leave her in some other way, and it was part reassuring, part terrifying. The farther they got from Derry the closer she got to buying that this was, without a shadow of a doubt, real life; but almost every member of the Losers Club was a living example that Derry clung somewhat desperately to you even after you left, taking as much as you would still allow it too and latching tighter when you tried to pry it away; sometimes your mind wont let you believe what you know is true because the little bit of Derry in you blocked off your ability to reason.

She tried to tell herself that a Deadlight Eddie wouldn’t have slept on the plane ride, probably wouldn’t have even made it on the plane, and if she ignored the dread that her already wobbly confidence was temporary she could relax.

Relax, not sleep. Sleeping was, evidently if last night was anything to go off of, the fucking enemy, so despite how her eyelids feel particularly heavy and Eddie’s rising and falling chest lets loose something reassuringly warm in her diaphragm she stays awake. She half watches the inflight movie, choosing the one she knew would hold the least of her attention (it’s a children’s cartoon, one she is almost certain she voiced a role in, Eddie could have told her but Richie, herself, tended not to watch things she had a role in as often as her wife did), it’s mainly there for background noise anyway. She pretends the incoherent bullshit she’s scribbling in her joke notebook is anything usable so she can feel productive, squeezing Eddie’s hand periodically like a lifeline; small and warm and slightly rough against Richie’s newly unscarred palm. 

Her back hurts, a dulled ache that had persisted almost forgotten since they were swimming the other day, but somehow halfway through the flight the pain spikes. She should probably tell someone about it but she doesn’t want to deal with it right now, after everything it’s just a little too reassuring despite it’s unpleasantness, and anyway she doesn’t want to make a big deal out of something that will probably go away soon enough and worry Eddie more than she needs to.

At one point Eddie jolts half awake, eyes flitting around the cabin panicked before landing on Richie, some of her sudden tension melting away. She closes her eyes, she's barely sure she’d been coherent enough to fully realize they’d been open, and leans up expectantly, looking put out when her wife presses a kiss to her forehead instead of her lips. She shifts her hold so she’s wrapped around Richie’s upper arm instead of holding her hand and falls back asleep. 

A selfish part of Richie is slightly reassured that she had a nightmare, even though she really fucking hates the fact that it happened, hates the idea of Eddie in any sort of distress, but it’s the detailed realism that makes her relax into the idea of reality. 

She wakes her up a few minutes before the flight attendant makes an announcement about entering California. It’s their routine, Eddie likes to be awake to put up her tray table before the announcement because she has a weird thing about it feeling condescending when they tell her to do it and she likes to be able to adequately prepare herself to unpop her ears. Despite the whole situation being almost down to a scheduled routine at this point, she blinks up at Richie and apologizes for falling asleep. 

“You’re good, you always fall asleep.”

“I know… I just didn’t mean to this time.” Something passes between them, intangible and discordant, Richie is almost certain they glean completely different information from the moment of silent eye contact before Eddie laces their fingers, kisses Richie’s scraped knuckles, and lifts her tray table before the flight attendant can tell them to.

The drive home is incredibly peaceful, which means they get stuck in traffic and Eddie rages loudly to Richie in an almost exclusively one sided conversation. Her hand cycles from the wheel to running through her short hair to squeezing Richie’s hand to back on the wheel, emphasized by a lot of over the top gesturing about the  _ fucking idiot assholes _ driving on the road with them. It’s so distinctly  _ Eddie _ she forgets, just for a moment, that there is a sliver of a chance this is all part of the evillest long con in fucking history, even though it’s starting to feel like less and less of a possibility.

“ _ God, _ I don’t think they make people in California take a fucking test, I think they just mail them a liscence when they turn sixteen,  _ fucking move!” _

“I love you.” She thinks. It takes Eddie turning to her, eyebrows unscrewing from their angry position to something fonder, to realize she also said it out loud.

She huffs, bemused, and looks like she’s going to say something before thinking better of it and swooping forward, kissing her, and turning back to the road.

“Oh my god,  _ jackass! It’s a green fucking light!” _

God, Richie really does love her. 

They’re house is exactly how they left it, which seems wrong when something so fundamental has shifted in their lives. 

The Eddie and Richie who left aren't the same Eddie and Richie who are standing in their living room; the ones trying to pretend the space in between them doesn’t feel emptier than it should, trying to ignore the stab wound in Eddie’s cheek and Richie’s shaky hands. 

Despite all that, being home helps more than anything, their photos on the wall, Bowie’s collar on the mantle, Eddie’s essential oil diffuser still sitting on the side table gathering dust from the time someone on twitter praised her ‘alternate medicinal choices’ after it was spotted in the background of a live and she had gotten so angry at the implication she could ever be anti-vax that she threw away all her oils and then immediately regretted it but had still, half a year later, neglected to buy more. It’s all so painfully detailed that it’s hard to disregard it, part of her still does, because she’s incredibly stubborn, but she knows she’s being ridiculous.

“We could order out for dinner? I’ll call.” Eddie offers, settling herself low in her favored corner of the couch, flopping the wrinkled blanket that had been left over the arm across her lap, looking less like she’s cold and more like she just needs to do something with her hands. She lets Richie under easily when she sits next to her, sliding down so her legs bend up on the coffee table and her head easily leans on Eddie’s shoulder. 

“I could make something.”

“ _ God, please,  _ that was an empty offer if I need to eat anymore take out I’ll die.” Richie snorts, tilting her head up so she can kiss her cheek.

“I know. Don’t have high expectations, Kaspbrak, I’m probably just going to make pasta.”

“But you’ll also make  _ sauce! _ ” 

“I mean, I could always use the jar of marinara that's been in our pantry since my last tour.” She slides down until her head is covered by the blanket, trying to hide her laughter at Eddie’s offended glare.

“Can you even breathe under there?” She can but she makes exaggerating wheezing noises anyway. Eddie rips the blanket away from her face and flicks her in the center of her forehead.

_ “Not funny asshole!” _ Richie just sticks her tongue out at her, turning to kiss her thigh and getting slapped away because, apparently, pants she wore on a plane weren’t sanitary enough to be kissed, which is a crime.

“Go make me pasta.”

“Fine you  _ tyrant. _ ” She rocks off the couch, poking Eddie’s uninjured cheek and hesitating, fingertip still prodding her face, as she tries to analyze why Eddie’s laugh after her quip sounded so supremely forced, “Don’t worry darling, you aren’t really a tyrant, I will gladly make you pasta whenever you want it.”

She’s clearly joking but it still makes Eddie’s shoulders relax. She feels like she should ask what the fuck that was about but Eddie just kisses her temple before shoving her toward the kitchen and she’s a little too nervous to say anything, worried it might destroy the tentative, awkward normal that had washed over them.

Part of her sort of just wants to use the jarred sauce to be a shithead but she doesn’t, its nice to have something to do, just turn her mind off and stir ingredients into a pan. Eddie had followed her into the kitchen a few minutes after, like she couldn’t bear the single wall distance between the two of them, not that Richie minds in the slightest. If she’s being honest she’d actually prefer if Eddie would stop pretending she was doing something on her phone and come over to inconvenience Richie by hanging over her shoulder to backseat cook like she normally did so they could be even closer.

But she doesn’t, she keeps pretending she’s doing important phone business even though Richie is pretty sure if she had a phone then she would just be getting alerts from the Losers group chat her and Stan can’t indepentendly partake in yet because they were stupid enough to destroy their phones in a sewer. 

Richie adds mushrooms to the sauce even though she doesn’t like them because she knows Eddie does and keeps pretending like she doesn’t have a million things to say and no idea how to pull the letters together. 

Dinner manages to cleave through some of the awkwardness. Quiet settles over them as they eat, but it’s comfortable. Eddie’s legs extend enough under the table that her ankles can hook together on top of Richie’s lap, occasionally poking her in the stomach with pointed toes to get her attention, not really to say anything but just because she likes to be annoying and Richie likes to be annoyed (and visa versa, of course).

They’re okay. They will be okay. It’s enough for now, Richie supposes. She’d need to get used to living in the moment, blocking out what ifs and maybe sos, but that’ll be easy enough if Eddie keeps sitting in front of her at the dinner table, complimenting her pasta making skills, tapping her foot against her thighs, and sliding her phone across the table so Richie can read the Loser’s group chat whenever someone says something funny. 

They finish dinner quickly enough but they don’t leave the table, instead Eddie uses her free hand that is no longer occupied by a fork and expectantly lays it palm up on the table, scrunching her fingers in frustrated grabby motions until Richie slots her hand comfortably atop it. If Eddie’s not planning on going anywhere neither is she.

She puts on music, a playlist Richie quickly recognizes as her own ‘Eddie’s sexy, soft, butch vibez’ playlist which she had been bullied mercilessly for making in the first place, but knew that, despite her teasing, Eddie listened to it more than she liked to let on. It was honestly a little more embarrassing to think about now than it was when she first put it together, what with her suddenly restored memory of the dozens of hopeless, longing mixtapes she’d made for Eddie when she was thirteen. 

Eddie slides her phone halfway across the table and flops her head back, eyes closed and thumb tapping the beat of the song against Richie’s inner wrist. 

Richie doesn’t know why movies never focus on this part of the adventure, the part where they get to go home, the return to normalcy. Richie thinks it’s much more beautiful than anything big and dramatic. Big and dramatic is still scary, this just feels real, so painfully real that she can’t bring herself to fixate on the possibility that she’s not actually here.

“What are you staring at?” She blinks into focus, Eddie is squinting at her suspiciously, head half tilted up.

“Just admiring the view, Spaghetti.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.” She’s blushing though and it’s just so earnestly adorable Richie can barely stand it. She drags her to the living room, not scooping her up and carrying her there exclusively because of how hard Eddie digs her heels in when she tries. She concedes to lying across Richie’s chest when they get to the couch like a consolation prize which is nearly as good. In fact, it was pretty fucking perfect.

But it gets later, time doesn’t actually stop when it feels like it should, when Richie despretly wishes it would. Eddie yawns over the movie they're watching and Richie knows what's coming. She knows they’ve had a long couple of days and they can’t ignore the inevitable forever but the weight is suddenly crushing back against her chest in anticipation and she isn’t quite sure she’ll be able to handle it even as she lets Eddie carefully guide her through their nightly routine. Richie wants to grab her shoulders and just  _ shake her _ , ask her how she hasn’t felt how precariously their hard earned normalcy is dangling balance. Doesn’t she feel it, crushing her, cutting off her air supply?

It’s nice to cuddle up against her under the blankets but it’s not enough to stop what’s coming, it isn’t nearly enough.

They have a balcony off their guest bedroom, it’s small and kind of stupid and Richie liked to make fun of it becuase it just shows the top of their neighbor’s roof and they don’t have enough friends for the guest bedroom to ever be useful enough to deserve a  _ balcony _ (well, they didn’t have enough friends before now) but all of that’s besides the point, because right now it is the only place Richie feels like she can breathe. 

Eddie’s asleep, or she was when she left, but she can’t join her right now, she doesn’t fucking want to, not when everything finally feels like real life and she know that if she goes to bed her doubts will swallow her whole the second she closes her eyes. So, she doesn’t even try.

She feels like she should have a cigarette right now, not because she’s craving one, god no, Eddie had nixed that particular habit before they even got together, but because it suits the fucking depressing ambiance of her freezing her ass off on a balcony at two in the morning all alone. She misses Eddie, which is ridiculous because she had literally just left her curled around Richie’s pillow a half hour ago, but it’s true. She wants her to be here but she also really, desperately doesn’t. This is embarrassing, she shouldn’t have to deal with it again after she kept her up all night with it in Derry.

Time feels like it moves slower out here, staring out into the foggy, starless sky and when that gets boring, her neighbors roofing tiles which quickly blur together into a mass of gray black. Fuck, she’s exausted, but the heavy, drowsy feeling that has settled in her joints and precariously latched over her shoulders and throbbed behind her eyes is better than feeling light, the sleepiness and the dull ache thats been settled at the base of her spine keeps her bare feet firmly pressed against the painted-gray wood of the balcony and thats all she can really ask for right now.

“Hey,” Someone says behind her and she starts a little, Eddie’s warm hands running over her upper arms as she leans against her back, chin resting comfortably on her shoulder, “Feel like coming back to bed?”

“Not yet.” 

“Okay… okay, okay. Can we go inside then? You’re fucking freezing, Rich.”

“M’fine.” 

“Mhm, sure you are.” She says skeptically, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck and shifting so she’s leaning against the railing next to her. She looks like she’s about to press, to make Richie talk about what's bothering her or force her inside so she can wrap her in a blanket and make whatever is wrong better but she doesn’t, her face just awkwardly crumples midthought before she, slightly forcefully, rests her cheek against Richie’s shoulder.

“You can go back to bed if you want, really.”

“I’ll wait for you.” 

“You don't-”

“I want to.” Her tone doesn’t leave much room for argument, she moves her arm across the balcony so their elbows are comfortably overlapped, fingers laced and bobbing lightly above the drop to their yard. It’s clear she wants to ask questions, Richie’s preparing herself for Eddie to ask questions because Eddie is a prier, it’s annoying but it really is the only way they get things done, but she doesn’t. It’s just quiet, but not the comfortable quiet of when they were sitting at the kitchen table, comfortable and safe and beautiful, this quiet is tense with unsaid secrets, the fragile sort of thing Richie desperately needs to break.

“We should get a dog.” She says before really thinking about it, but it’s true, they should. 

“Think so?” Eddie sounds amused at the tonal shift, which Richie supposes is fair. Neither of them look at eachother, just keep staring out into the fog. This is the simple kind of conversation that doesn’t need reassurance or eye contact or anything fancy, just their words and their hands clasped tightly together.

“Yeah.” 

“Okay, we should.” Something tense releases in Richie’s chest. She has been falling apart, behind the doubt and the fear, at the reminder of how quickly everything she’s built can be over. Even if Eddie dying was just a vision, it could still happen, she could still lose her in the blink of an eye and they need to stop waiting to do the things they’ve planned or they might never do them. They’ll get a dog, they’ll get remarried, they’ll go on trips, they need to stop stalling. At another time she probably would have articulated this to Eddie, she probably should have.

Instead she says: “We could name it Stan.”

“She’d kill you.” It’s nicer to make Eddie laugh than it is to worry her, anyway.

“Well who else are we going to name it after? Ben? She’d just be flattered, she’d probably cry Eddie, do you want to see Ben cry?”

“Come on, give Ben a little credit,  _ Mike _ would cry.”

“Oh for  _ sure, _ see you're just proving my point, Bev would be too cocky about it and Bill would miss the comedic value and probably like… feel bad we wasted our dog name on her so it  _ has to be Stan!” _ Eddie finally turns to her cupping her cheek almost condescendingly.

“ _ Or, _ we could just wait until we see the dog to name it and  _ maybe _ what this means is we should not name it after one of our friends.”

“You are incredibly boring.” She pouts, and Eddie pats her cheek too hard twice before dropping the hand. 

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you.” 

“Oh thank  _ God.” _ Eddie teases, bobbing up on her toes to kiss her. It doesn’t last for nearly long enough before she breaks away, chests still pressed together and hands intertwined.

“Ready to go in?” Her eyes are so big and pleading that Richie really wants to just concede and say yes, but she can’t.

“Just a little longer” She knows she sounds petulant, a child asking for another story or a glass of water to stall a bedtime they know is coming but Eddie humors her, brushing their lips once again before resuming her position against the railing.

“Okay, but just a little bit.”

She knows when she goes to bed there's probably going to be a nightmare waiting. She knows things aren't as perfect as they feel right now. She knows there's still so much they both need to deal with. She knows all that, but it’s nice to delay the inevitable for just a little longer.

“Hey, sweetheart, we’re okay.” Eddie mumbles after a minute and Richie just nods, leaning against her side and staring back into the fog.

They’re okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, rolling up OVER A MONTH after I posted the last chapter with two new fics on my account, a high school diploma, and search history full of how long a flight from Maine to different parts of the country would take: Hey you guys, uhhhh, wanna mostly filler chapter thats some vauge hurt comfort and a lot of Other Losers content? does this work for you?
> 
> That being said! Thanks for sticking around! We're sort of in the home stretch here? Probably threeish more chapters? But they'll be long and also probably take some time, hopefully not another full month jesus christ


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